Every summer, while their friends were away on vacations, Fade's mother took them on a road trip.
"Do you have everything?" their mom called from downstairs. "We're not turning around again if you remember something after we've gone out." She was loading a cooler of snacks into the car. Fade could see her from the window, long blonde hair pinned expertly up, still elegant and fashionable despite being probably closer to forty than she cared to admit. Fade had asked before, and their mom had been pretty miffed about it.
She looked kind of like a mom just then. She was doing something a mom would be doing, anyway, even if she still didn't
look like someone who had actually had a child.