On the afternoon I learned my mother wasn’t actually a prude, the two of us were on the balcony of my parents’ apartment in Zagreb, hanging wet laundry on the clotheslines. It was the final day of my annual visit. As I placed a clothespin on the last white cotton sheet, Mother let out a satisfied sigh.

“Plum?” she said.

“Yes, please,” I said.

We’d been to the farmers market that morning, and once again, I’d managed to hold my tongue every time I disagreed with her, every time she made a passive aggressive remark about my divorce or my parenting or the fact that I’d abandoned the corporate ladder, failing to do more with my potential. For me, this was the definition of a successful visit.

She opened the sliding glass door to the living room, where Father lay on the sectional in front of the blasting AC unit, watching a water polo match on TV.

“How’s it looking?” I called to him.

“Not good,” he said as Mother closed the door behind her.

My daughter, Ella, was visiting too. She’d just finished a semester abroad in Barcelona and was now holed up in the guest bedroom, talking on the phone with her Spanish host brother. I hoped she would come out to join me. Every evening at this hour, when the sun was going down and the viscous air lightened, I liked to watch passersby on the street below, which was lined with sycamore trees and parked cars. Directly across the street, a car pulled out of its spot and another quickly replaced it, parking haphazardly and leaving its high beams on. Inside the car, a man in a striped shirt and a woman with long, curly hair were lowering their seats. Soon after, body parts appeared against the window: two hands squeezing a butt in blue jeans. Then the woman was sitting up, loosening the straps of her flowy top.

I turned to intercept Mother before she came back out onto the balcony, but she was already there with two plums, dew drops glistening on their deep purple skin. She handed one to me, reached into her dress pocket, and offered me a small paring knife.

“Sure,” I said. I still ate fruit the way she’d taught me as a child, with a sharp blade—less spillage, less mess.

She bit into the plum and the juice trickled between her fingers, ran down her wrist and arm. It wasn’t like her. I offered the knife, but she shook her head.

“Life’s too short,” she said, taking another messy bite.

Maybe this was what the wisdom of aging looked like, or maybe it was just resignation. I cut a piece of plum, slipped it into my mouth, and stole a glance at the car across the street, where the man and woman were still undressing. I doubted Mother would be so sanguine if she spotted them, and a part of me looked forward to seeing her flustered. As a child, I hated the way she shrieked every time a sex scene started to unfold on TV, scrambling to find the remote.

“So good,” she said, finishing off her plum. She flung the pit off the balcony in the direction of a stray cat on the sidewalk. “Almost!” She clapped her hands, started to turn away, and froze. “Well, look at that,” she said, lowering her voice. She rose up on tiptoes, craning her neck, the metal rail at the top of the balustrade cutting into her midsection. “Finally something interesting to see in this neighborhood.” She nodded toward the car for my benefit.

“Jeez,” I said, feigning surprise.

“Such energy!” Mother picked a hot pepper from her concrete planter and bit into it. In that moment, she was a stranger to me—perhaps more relatable than my mother, but a stranger nonetheless.

“Good for them,” she said, nibbling on the pepper.

“Oh, who knows,” I said. “Maybe she’s a hooker.”

“I don’t think so,” Mother said. “Look how carelessly they parked.”

“Okay, but why would they leave the headlights on?” I said. “They’re drawing attention on purpose. They’re performing.”

“Doubtful,” Mother said. “I think they’re just caught up in the moment.”

Her generous appraisal of the situation stung. Since when did my mother give people the benefit of the doubt when it came to sexuality? When she caught me touching myself at thirteen, her contempt shook me to the bone. I tried speaking to her openly and honestly; I told her I masturbated only to blow off steam or procrastinate; I said I rarely imagined boys. She didn’t believe me.

Now that I was a big girl, I wouldn’t let her make me feel uncomfortable about sex again. She watched, so I watched too. I cut another slice of plum but found myself too distracted to eat it. My mother was concentrating on the action now, zoning out. He breathing grew shallow, and she gripped the railing with both hands. This, I didn’t see this coming. She was aroused.

“Shall we give them some privacy?” I said.

“I don’t think they care.”

I was reminded of the time I told Roy, my ex-husband, that watching porn with someone else turned me on, and he had flinched. Whenever I tried tell him where and how to touch me, he’d get frustrated. On the day he served me divorce papers, he said he wasn’t able to be himself with me. I wrote him off as being uptight, just like Mother. Or so I thought.

An old man pushing a walker was approaching the car. He looked inside and paused to watch as Mother and I chuckled. At least we were on the same page. Moments later, as the old man moved along, a car stopped in the street, mistaking the sex car’s hasty parking job for an exit in progress. The car behind that one honked. The lovers kept at it, oblivious.

Inside, my father let out a yelp. He was standing in front of the TV, arms thrown in the air, victorious. Mother’s eyes were still tethered to the fuck car.

“That’s what he’s into,” she said. “The paid otters throwing a ball around.”

That made me wonder if she wasn’t aroused after all but was just feeling reflective, watching someone else’s life, contemplating how hers could’ve been different if she and Father had loosened up a bit.

“These two,” she said, nodding toward the car, “they know what matters. They know how to enjoy life.”

“Talking from your rich romantic experience?” I said, unable to stop myself.

She whipped around and gave me a look that made me feel ten years old again. “As if you’d know anything about my romantic experience.”

Chastened, I glanced back at the car. The couple had slowed down, and I hoped the spectacle was over. But it turned out just to be a break. A moment later, they regrouped, and off they went again, the car rocking to and fro.

“My sex life didn’t start with your conception,” Mother continued, picking another hot pepper, “and neither did it stop once you were out of the house.”

I shot her a look now. If she was saying what I think she was saying, she had a lot of nerve preaching to me about abstinence and purity when I was a teenager. Had she had a lover, or lovers? Or was she just alluding to her sex life with my father? Either possibility was disturbing to imagine.

“Hey,” someone called to us from below.

It was Lovorka, leader of Mother’s Bible group, and she was standing right in front of the fornicators. If Mother was concerned that Lovorka would realize we’d been watching, she didn’t show it.

“Hi, Lovorka,” she said.

“Look at your daughter,” Lovorka said. “So nice to see grown children enjoying their parents.”

“Sure is,” Mother said.

“I bet she hung up those sheets,” Lovorka said.

“Sure did,” Mother said.

I forced a smile, the dutiful daughter graciously accepting a gold star from the church lady with a stiff updo and sensible black loafers. But it was impossible to look at Lovorka without looking past her to the woman in the car, who was arching her bare back now, bracing a hand against the window. A laugh escaped me, and Mother joined in before recovering her manners.

“Okay, Lovorka,” she said, “enjoy your walk.”

Lovorka held her ground. “Don’t forget to bring your tapestry equipment on Thursday.”

“Sure,” Mother said. “Have a good evening.”

Lovorka finally took the hint and shuffled off, none the wiser.

“Tapestry?” I said.

“We’re trying to interest teenage girls in working with their hands,” Mother said, not breaking eye contact with the car. “I bet this one didn’t learn her skills weaving tapestries.”

If she was trying to shock me, it was working, and I had the urge to return the favor, to let Mother know what I was capable of. On my first flight to the States and my new life, after the cabin lights dimmed, I guided Roy’s hand inside my pants. As he fingered me there among our fellow passengers, I struggled to be quiet and muffled myself on his shoulder. Whether Mother would find this story scandalous or tame, I no longer knew.

“Who are you talking to?” Ella said, appearing from behind the sheets. It was still warm out, and she peeled off her tank top to reveal a bra above a tiny pair of cutoffs.

“Lovorka from my Bible group,” Mother said.

“Oh,” Ella said. “She cool?”

“She blah,” Mother said, surprising us both with her deft use of Ella’s slang.

“How’s Carlos?” I said.

“Fine,” Ella said. “But I need to wean him off.”

“Wean him off?” Mother said.

“Oh, you know, he’s in love. I’m realistic and not into long distancing,” Ella said.

“I didn’t know you two were a couple,” I said.

“Not a couple,” Ella said. “More like a couple of times. Hot couple of times.”

Normally, I would have been proud that Ella felt free to talk openly in front of her grandma, but also nervous that Mother would judge us both, thinking I condoned a casual attitude toward sex. Now I didn’t know what to think.

“Speaking of hot.” Mother grabbed Ella’s chin and turned it toward the sex car.

“Damn!” Ella said. “Maybe we should get Grandpa.”

“No!” I said.

Mother cackled, and I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. When had I become the prudish mom and she the cool grandma?

“Did Carlos have a car?” Mother asked.

Ella knew what she was getting at, as if they talked like this all the time. “No car. And the apartment was off limits, out of respect,” she said. “His mom caught us making out in my room and told us to go find a park bench like normal kids.”

“What?” I said.

Ella shrugged. “Cultural quirks.”

“Interesting,” Mother said.

Father opened the door. Apparently the match was over. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing!” I said.

“What’s for dinner?” he said.

“Leftovers,” Mother said.

Father grunted and slid the door closed.

“I wouldn’t recommend the park bench,” Ella continued.

“And I wouldn’t recommend a public restroom,” Mother said. “Train’s not bad, though.”

This time, to my credit, I managed not to blurt out, What public restroom? What train?

“Oh, well,” Ella said. “I guess that’s it.”

The couple in the car was raising their seats, pulling on their clothes.

“Too bad,” Mother said, taking Ella’s hand and leading her inside.

I was left alone on the balcony with the damp, white sheets, still holding the paring knife and my half-eaten plum, feeling like I’d been punked. Yes, I preferred this new version of Mother, but I still couldn’t reconcile it with the woman who had raised me to feel so much shame around sex.

Mother peered through the door. “Coming?”

I brushed past her into the living room, where Father was in high spirits watching the post-match interviews. “Who’s warming up the lasagna?” he said.

“Microwave,” I said.

“What are you up to?” Ella said.

“Bathroom,” I said.

I closed the door, lowered the lid, and sat, breathing in and out, in and out, trying to calm down. Turning to my failsafe, I unzipped my pants, stuck my middle finger inside my pussy, and thrust fast and furious, chasing release. I was almost there, just a few more thrusts at the right speed and the right angle, when I felt foolish for being in such a rush. Why shortchange my pleasure? As if guided by someone else, my hand slowed down. I started to slide my finger around, running it over all sides of my vaginal wall, massaging. My body unclenched, my breath deepened, my thoughts scattered, my head cleared. Soon enough, I was on the verge again. I reached for the flush handle to mask whatever came out of my mouth, but it was no use.

“Ah!” I moaned.

Dishes clattered on the kitchen counter.

“What’s gotten into you?” Mother yelled.

I slid another finger inside myself. “Ah!”

“Are you okay?” Father said.

“Yes!” I cried. “Yes! Yes!”

“Seriously, Mom,” Ella said. “What in the actual fuck.”

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