"Have you decided yet?" asked Doctor Shuh, mild and quiet in the driver’s seat.

I had closed my eyes, letting the car wind flow over me, still silky and warm under the streetlights. I opened them now with a sigh and stared straight ahead for a bit.

"No," I admitted finally.

She laughed softly. "Don’t worry – there’s still time."

I sighed again, not bitterly though, and found myself sinking into that soft, soft seat, the fruit of successful labours in wards and examination halls. I felt myself drift again, losing time and place, yet growing more aware of melting amber lights behind my eyelids, the woman beside me, the caress of air on my temples. The car barely moved on its expensive suspension, but its movements were sufficient to lull me; long, smooth swells like someone rocking me close, but not too close, not suffocating.

My thoughts fled to my mother, correct and anxious, loving but tense, reading endless magazines on how to mother us, how to feed us, how to clothe us; stretching to private education because she thought it was the right thing to do. My father in the background, and I was more like him, through genetics or whatever, yet never getting closer because of the roles they had elected to play – doting mother and distant, genial father. Suited more, surely, to half a century ago and all despite what the magazines said, what she tried to learn.

So my sister went away to university, and I, though staying reasonably local, left the school for a sixth form college and then an unsuitable, non-professional degree (again, unlike my sister) as intellectually and emotionally liberating as it was impractical.

Families, eh? And so we. We do, and dance to that old tune – how does it go? Mother, father, sister and furniture swing in and out like a melting maypole dance and What shall we tell your mother? And I, I.

"You were dreaming," she said, gazing steadily ahead.

I chuckled slightly, feeling how dry my throat had become, open to the night breezes. "Almost. My thoughts drifting." I cough a little and straighten in my seat.

She smiled. "Interesting ones?"

"No." A drawn-out sound. "Same old stuff."

"Mother?"

A sighing laugh this time, no more than a whisper. "Yeah – reset to Mother as ever. Sort of automatic pilot." I sneaked a look at her, knowing what she was thinking. "You know me too well."

"Yeah," she said quietly.

I wriggled, and fiddled with the radio, the silence between us no longer comfortable, but anything that we could have said had been said already, and we both knew it. As if the night felt the same, it conspired to fill the gaps between stations with cats fighting and making love, dogs objecting, the distant spine-freezer of sirens, slammed doors, a man shouting at his dog.

I turned the radio off sharply, and a whispery silence descended. I looked at the woman next to me; thinking over what we shared. She was visibly tense now, hands clamped on the wheel, eyes staring down the streetlights and street signs, the suburban front paths appearing and disappearing, shrinking from her glare.

I remembered earlier, on the motorway or A road or whatever when she tried to get me to answer. Even then the womb-like mothercar lulled me under a setting sun. That’s when she decided to take the top down – to keep me awake, but the air wasn’t cold enough: quite the opposite.

"Concentrate," she’d said. "What are we going to tell your mother?"

"Julia!" then she’d given up on me, fondly indulgent. "Whenever," softly.

"Julia." She says it again. I’d turned my head away with memory, but I look again, then ahead, concentrating. "Right here," and it’s accomplished as smoothly as ever. "And now, not here but next left."

"Okay." She never says ‘Right’ when people are giving her directions.

We pull slowly along, and she stops when I, tautened by memories, stare around and nod. The car whispers to a halt and I get out, shutting the door with its satisfying, expensive thunk. We met after a party, the car and I, when she drove me home, sober and trembling, and the sound of the door still raises echoes in my guts.

"Don’t worry about that," I say as she reaches for the bags. We’ll get them in the morning." She nods mutely, presses the button for the soft top, waits, checks, and remotes the door locks; I cross in front of the car and take her hand as the windows whirr shut. "It’ll be alright," I say firmly, drawing her along.

"But..."

"Ssh."

Crunchy gravel, still patchy, and some of the trees have been freshly trimmed. The light’s on above the porch and I ring the bell and step back off the ledge; she relinquishes my hand. My mother opens the door, father not far behind, head gleaming, grey eyes inquisitive-kindly.

"Julia!" and her loving smile tempered as ever with anxiety. Is she being too friendly, not friendly enough; look, there’s a stranger.

"Mother," I step forward into the lit porch, "this is Emily, my girlfriend. I think I’ve told you a little about her."

"Of course," swallowing her shock which isn’t really surprised. "Uh, the doctor. Come in."

And I’m looking at the only one whose reaction matters, ever mattered, my arm stretched out. She takes my hand, and steps into the light.