“Thank you, darling,” Demeter looked at her daughter fondly.  Then she carefully added, with as light a touch as she could manage, “Honey, if you don’t want to join me this morning, then maybe you can join me and your father later for lunch, at least?  Just for a change of scenery – different from hanging around the house all day, like you’ve been doing?”

Diane ran her slim, pale hand roughly through her tousled hair, and then set her coffee cup down on the delicate saucer clumsily.  She took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly.  “Mom, I know you mean well…”

It was Demeter’s turn to rub her daughter’s arm, “We’re just so worried about you, honey….”

“Well, don’t, mom,” Diane answered quickly.

“How can I not, sweetheart?” Demeter asked, unable to keep the worried tone from her voice any longer.  “Your eyes are puffy every morning when you come down for breakfast, and Laure says you’ve not allowed anyone to enter your room to clean it, ever since you arrived last week.”

Diane kept quiet, then, unable to hold her mother’s worried gaze, she buried her face in her hands and rested her elbows on the table.

“This leave of absence you took from the bank,” her mother continued, haltingly.

“It’s not a bank, mom,” Diane corrected her softly, shaking her head, which she kept buried in her hands.

“Whatever it is,” Demeter responded.

“It’s a venture capital fund,” Diane explained, for the umpteenth time.

“Okay … this fund.  Your leave of absence won’t…,” Demeter tried again.

“Tom says I can take as long as I want,” Diane interjected.

Demeter looked at her daughter in surprise, but asked cautiously, “Hmmm … are they worried that you were, maybe, working too much, that’s why…”

From behind her hands Diane cut in again, “Everyone over there works too much, mom.  But my boss said the same thing.  He assured me in his last email that he’d do anything he could to help me.  Besides, Tom founded the fund … he keeps his investors happy, so no one tends to question him.  So if this is fine with him …”

“Well. It’s definitely nice of him,” Demeter said with a smile, rubbing the back of her daughter’s neck, massaging it lightly, the way she used to when Diane was a child and she’d come upon Diane staying up at night in the kitchen, having wandered there from her room, while working on extra school work.