She should be grateful that CariAnne wanted to hold her hand. Truth was, when Julia finally gave in to dating women, she thought that at least she wouldn’t have to deal with children. Too often the men she had dated wanted her to be instant stepmom to their weekend kids. Julia knew long ago that she didn’t possess that maternal gene. She realized that she never wanted to be a mother long before she even realized her preference for women. She didn’t admit it to anyone, but children grated on her nerves. She didn’t have the patience for either their bouts of exuberance or, at the other end of the spectrum, their constant whining. Her new partner had recently suggested— after seeing how uncomfortable Julia seemed to be with her daughter—that perhaps Julia hadn’t gotten the chance to be a child herself and so she couldn’t relate. To which Julia had muttered, “Thank you very much, Dr. Freud,” but at the same time she remembered thinking, “Duh. You think?” Julia was ten, just a little older than CariAnne, when her mother died.
