but she wants to easily be able to take her MacBook to meetings with her (membership chair of the local democratic club And I'm afraid she'd lose the mouse.

She really wants to learn to use it - she just needs some repetitive practice, like Bart Simpson writing on the chalkboard.

I’ve never been able to adapt to the touchpad, and I’ve owned many laptops.

I'll give her a couple of days and see if she reconsiders. Of course, then I'll have to walk her through setting up the mouse over the phone. :/

If it’s an Apple Magic Mouse, they pair quite easily if you have Bluetooth turned on.

...make sure that you've selected "Scroll Direction: Natural" in Preferences > Trackpad > Scroll & Zoom.

Natural direction pushes the screen content up or down like on an iPad or iPhone. I find that's this is the biggest adjustment for folks switching to a Mac trackpad for the first time.

I turn off the "Scroll Direction: Natural" setting. With it on I can't get a thing done. And I've used computers with mice since 1985. But that's just me.

Macs with trackpads default to "Natural" scrolling. The original poster could try turning that off... Then the trackpad acts like a scroll wheel on a mouse where finger direction moves the scroll bars and the window view not the content itself.

Natural on is like pushing a piece of paper with content on a table surface with your eyes fixed at one spot. The other setting moves your eyes over fixed content following the direction of your finger.

All that said... I still prefer a mouse.

I'll use the trackpad for short periods of time, but for anything longer than 5 minutes I'll find the mouse. I do like the apple magic mouse. The top surface is basically a mini-trackpad.

Remember on the trackpad you've got a lot of extras that can be disabled. E.g. I like being able to tap-to-click with just a brief touch, but it's harder to learn. And most of the cords (more gestures) are pretty silly.