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I expect her to make some sarcastic remark about how I just gave her permission to sleep.

And get up to leave.

She only seems to enjoy my orders when we’re having sex.

But she doesn’t do that.

“For the last three years,” she says quietly, “I didn’t even make her a birthday cake, until after her birthday had passed. I just can’t stand the thought of her not getting to eat it. And I cry on her birthday, because she made it to another one. Then we make a cake together, and go down to the waterfront to eat it. Her birthday is in summer, so at least there’s that.”

We lie in silence as I try to picture Quinn and her mom sitting by the water, eating birthday cake.

I’ve never had a moment like that with my mom. It seems foreign to me.

And utterly beautiful.

I think, when I was a kid, I wanted that kind of life more than anything. But even then, maybe I knew it was an impossible dream.

I just didn’t have that kind of mother.

But I don’t long for that anymore.

I wonder, when was the last time I actually had a dream like Quinn’s dream about her bakery?

“If you could have anything,” I ask her, wanting fiercely to know, “what would it be? Even if it seems impossible.”

She considers for a long moment, then says, “A view of the water.”

“Really?”

“Yes. My dad used to love the water. He never had a boat or anything. He always wanted one, but we never had that kind of money. So he would take me down to the waterfront as often as possible, and we’d look at the water, and talk about the boats going by, imagine the lives of the people on them and where they were floating off to. And when I’m feeling overwhelmed or scared, I still go down to the water. I walk along the beach, or onthe Seawall. And I feel close to him. And everything just feels… better.”

I take that in.

I never had moments like that with my dad, either.

“My granddad was obsessed with the water,” I find myself saying. “He told me that when he was a teenager, he met a man who owned a skyscraper downtown. It was some friend of his grandparents’. And he got to go up to the top and look out at the city, and he could see these buildings all along the waterfront. And he decided that one day, he was going to own them.”

I pause for a moment, considering. “He had no reason to think he could do that. His dad owned a modest auto repair business and his mom was a librarian. And those buildings he saw out the window weren’t the actual buildings he ended up buying, but before he died, he’d acquired an entire waterfront neighborhood in downtown Vancouver. All the properties along Bayshore Drive, and others close by. And the arena, too, and a resort on the ski hill. Every one of them with a water view. He not only achieved what he set out to do, I think it became his obsession.”

Quinn takes that in.

“That’s wild,” she says after a moment. “Like, what makes one person see a waterfront neighborhood and think, ‘I’m going to own all these buildings one day,’ and then godo it, and another person just sit on the shore and watch the boats go by?”

I consider what she’s saying, and I don’t have an answer.

I’ve always felt my own success was driven by a desire to dominate in business.

But more and more, I’m understanding that it’s a distraction.

The need to dominate keeps me focused. An extreme work ethic and the demands of perfectionism give my obsessive compulsions an outlet. I work hard. I work a lot. I expectperfection from myself and everyone around me, and when I don’t get it, I keep pushing for it until I get it.

The thing is, there is no perfection, so, it’s an endless pursuit.

It’s also a selfish pursuit.

Maybe Quinn’s father wasn’t selfish enough. He prioritized his family, and forfeited his chance to acquire boats.

Clearly, Quinn is driven by her love for her mom. She wants to take care of her.