"You can tell yourself that Vanessa. But this is just like love and politics—you won't change my mind. You are in to things that you don't need to be involved with. You need to move back home."

Vanessa closed her eyes. "I'd like to get the birthday money you said you'd give me."

Vanessa heard her grandmother's chair scrape the floor as the woman rose. When she looked up her grandmother was holding an envelope in her hands. She handed it to Vanessa who accepted it in ...