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It's statistically impossible that my mother is always right. So why doesn't she seem to know it?Besides, it's demonstrably true that I'm not always wrong. I have twenty-one Emmys for investigative reportingwon number twenty-one after I was stalked by murderous thugs, threatened by insider-trading CEOs and held at gunpoint by a money-hungry sociopath who I proved was mastermind of a nationwide insider-trading scandal. Every one of them is in prison now. So I must have been right about a lot of things.But at this moment, struggling for balance on a cushily upholstered chair at Mom's bedside in New England's most exclusive cosmetic surgery center, somehow I no longer feel like the toast of Boston television. I feel more like toast. Once again, I'm a gawky, awkward, nearsighted adolescent, squirming under the assessing eye of Lorraine Carpenter McNally. Two months from now, provided her face heals in time for the wedding, she'll be Lorraine Carpenter McNally Margolis."Charlotte," Mother says. "Stop frowning. You're making lines." Millions of viewers know me as Charlie McNally. I'm not Charlie to my mother, though. As she's repeatedly told me, my news director, my producer Franklin Parrish, my ex-husband Sweet Baby James, admirers who hail me on the street, and certainly Josh Gelston when she meets him: "Nicknames are for stuffed animals and men who have to play sports." After that pronouncement, she always adds: "If I'd wanted a child named Charlie, I would have had a boy and named him that."Mom and I do better by long distance. Most of our conversations begin with me telling her about something I've done. Then she tells me what I should have done. Then I ask why nothing I do is ever good enough. Then she insists she's not "criticizing," she's "observing." As long as she stays in her skyscraping lake-view condo in Chicago, we do a good job pretending we're a close-knit pair.But here she is in my hometown, swaddled in a frothy peach hospital gown, surrounded by crystal vases of fragrant June peonies, reclining against down pillows. She insists that I shouldn't come visit her every day, saying she's certain I have better things to do. Patients "of a certain age" who have "extensive surgery" stay here through recovery, minimum fourteen days. So this is going to be an interesting couple of weeks. And by interesting I mean impossible.At least Mom doesn't look as bad as I expected for a few hours after surgery. No bruises yet, no puffy eyes. She's got bags of what look like frozen peas Ace bandaged to each side of her face to keep down the swelling, and I can still see the little needle marks where her precious Dr. Garth injected Restylane to erase the lines in her forehead."All the pretty girls are doing it," she says. She would have given me her trademark raised eyebrow for emphasis, I'm sure, if she could move her eyebrows. "And if you don't make an appointment with the plastic surgeon at your age..." Her voice trails off, apparently rendered speechless by my continuing refusal to face reality. She settles into her plump nest of pillows, adjusts her peas and pushes harder. "Charlotte, you know I'm right, and..."Keeping my face appropriately attentive, I begin a mental list of all the things I should be doing at nine-thirty on a Monday night instead of babysitting with my mother. Thinking about a blockbuster story for the July ratings. Calling Franklin to see if he's come up with another Emmy winner. Making sure I have a bathin