I was sprawled across the sofa in the living room in the early afternoon, playing a game app I'd downloaded on my phone, when my mom entered the room. She wore the running outfit I'd bought for her for her birthday a few days earlier: tiny bun-hugging shorts and a clingy bra top.

She looked like a goddess. I put my phone down.

"Randy," she said. "Let's go for a run."

It was the first time I had seen her in the outfit since she had modeled it on her birthday. Somehow, it looked even skimpier in daylight than it had in the evening on her birthday. The bra and...