Sunday.
She'd told me the night before, very plainly, not to come before half past ten. Her rule, not mine. Said all the mums remember drop-off time and forget how long these things actually run.
Dropped her round at ten in the morning, dress zipped in its garment bag across the back seat, the fifteen little parcels already stacked in her tote by the front door before we'd even left the house.
Who was doing hair, who was doing makeup, whose house they'd end up getting ready at — all sorted between the four of them over some group chat I wasn't part of. Didn't need to be. No standing by required, for once.
Snapped a photo of the tote before she carried it out to the car — all fifteen still wrapped, lined up neat against the hall table.
Rang Ninuo on the drive back, straight after dropping her. Sent the photo through before I'd even pulled into the driveway.
She went quiet a second — the good kind, the kind she goes before she's properly pleased about something — then said we should get coffee. Next week, Rowe Street, no agenda, straight out, like she'd been waiting for an excuse.
Whole day dragged after that, at the shop, on my own. A text came through just after eleven — arrived, already handed the roll-ons round, everyone loved them. Nothing much after. She was properly there, in it, not checking her phone for me.
One photo around six, the four of them against someone's staircase, dresses catching the flash all at once.
Wiped the same bit of counter twice at the shop, caught myself doing it the second time and laughed, alone, nobody there to see it.
Half past ten, exactly, and there she was, coming out through the doors with the rest of them, and for a second I nearly didn't recognise my own daughter — the dress catching the last of the venue lights just right, somehow taller than half the girls next to her, though I know for a fact she isn't.
Same tote on her shoulder, gone out empty by the afternoon, apparently, and full again by the time she reached the car. Not one of mine left in it. Girls had been pressing things into her hands all night. A bracelet. A little candle. A card someone had scribbled a joke on and folded twice so it would fit.
She spotted me by the car and didn't run the way she used to at primary school pickup. Walked instead. Unhurried, half past ten exactly, like she had all the time in the world and knew it.
Got in glowing — actually glowing, not the phone-filter kind. Told me three times before we'd even left the car park how many people had asked where the roll-ons came from.
Didn't say Nu Skin. Didn't say anything about a company, or a business, or Ninuo at all. Just said "Mum got them," like that was the whole answer anyone needed.
Home not long after eleven, my daughter already upstairs changing back into trackpants like the dress had never happened.
Sat on the back step after, tea gone cold before I'd even started it, the shower running upstairs for the second time that night.
Kept thinking about the tote, of all things. Left the house full that morning, came back full that night. Different things inside it, but full both ends of the day.
Thought about the maths tutor too. How different she'd been since he started coming Tuesdays — sitting straighter at the table, answering back less, explaining things to me instead of the other way round for once.
Didn't used to carry herself like that. Didn't used to walk instead of run.
Sat there a long while, not really thinking about anything else. Just that — a kid who used to leave wet towels on the floor, walking out of a formal at half past ten at night like she already knew exactly who she was, a bagful of somebody else's small kindnesses swinging off her arm.
Laughed to myself, quietly, tea still untouched.
She's grown up. Properly grown up, somewhere in the middle of all this, while I was busy watching the roll-ons and the orders and everything else.