" Here I am,” I said, all impertinence. “I’m watching the time.” Knowing my mother’s voice as well as I did, I could already hear her say, “Oh, you are a bold piece.” Knowing the limits of my mother’s patience, I could already feel the slap on my cheek. But my mother merely stood beside me with her hands on her hips, studying her stubborn daughter once more, even as that daughter kept her exaggerated, myopic stare on the clock. “I suppose this is how it’s going to be,” she said softly, more to herself than to me. “You’re growing up.” And then, for a moment, she put a gentle hand to my head. She said, “God help us both,” and left the kitchen. "

― Alice McDermott , Someone