At the time, it felt important.
I told Gia it was too small.
She told me it was her shirt.
I said that wasn’t the point.
She demanded to know what the point was.
And instead of seeing my daughter standing in front of me, I saw a challenge to my authority.
We had been fighting all summer.
Her clothes.
Her friends.
Her curfew.
Her attitude.
My rules.
My lectures.
At seventeen, Gia could turn almost anything into a confrontation.
At forty-one, so could I.
Finally, she grabbed the beach bag from a chair.
I thought she was bluffing.
“Then go,” I snapped. “See how far you get.”
Gia stared at me.
Then she said one word.
“Fine.”
She didn’t slam the door.
That detail has haunted me almost as much as my final sentence.
If she had slammed it, maybe I could have remembered her as furious.
