"Well," she says, cupping her drink with both hands to give her something to focus on besides her words. "If John were here, he'd be seventeen now," she says. "And given how stubborn he was at fifteen when I last saw him, I think I might have passed away from sheer teenage will," she jokes dryly. "It's...hard," she grits out. "Without him here, it's hard, but I always knew that one day he'd have to leave home. I guess I wasn't ready to think it was now."