I Was Told It Would Get Easier(21)

One of the selling points of E3 is that they take care of everything on the tour; you just have to pay a ridiculous sum of money. They offer dozens of different tours, some regional like ours, some hopscotching the country to cover a particular major (best colleges for engineering, etc.). Once you’ve picked a tour and handed over your credit card, they do the rest, booking all the tickets, arranging and paying for meals (except where noted and excluded—always read the small print), hotels, transportation, and such. For those of us with no time to ponder the variables, it seemed like a worthwhile exchange. All we had to do was show up and check “college tour” off our list. But it wasn’t like touring North Korea; you could always leave the group, as long as you made it back in time for the bus.

I walked alongside my daughter, noting the pace of her steps, the set of her shoulders. As a little girl Emily had been shy and reserved, a little bit clingy and interested in staying close. She was the kid sitting on the side twenty minutes after everyone else was in the pool. When I’d expressed concern to her preschool teacher, the teacher laughed and told me to be glad she wasn’t first in the water.

“She’s not scared, she’s watching. She’s evaluating. When all her friends are doing drugs, she’ll be the one who calls the ambulance, don’t worry.” As Emily wasn’t quite four at the time, the thought of her actually being able to use a phone was as surprising a concept as her doing drugs, but I’d clung to this advice tightly, especially during middle school.

I missed her being little. Little-kid problems are so much more easily solved than teenage problems. I’m fully aware I’m not the first parent to notice this. I was working full-time, but in the evenings and weekends I had string cheese and cookies, cartoons and hugs, kisses and stuffed toys. I took Emily to baby gym and then toddler gym and then kinder gym on Saturday mornings; later I drove her to dance lessons and piano lessons. I felt competent and quietly proud that I managed to stay patient most of the time.

I’ll be honest, though, there were days in the office, or in the courtroom, where I forgot I even had a child. Not all day, just periodically. I loved my work. I loved solving problems that were complicated and thorny, that no one else had yet solved. And working hard also meant I was building a wall of protection for us, Emily and me, and if it meant I had less time for Emily, then it was the small price we had to pay until the wall was high enough. Once she was in school and we had Anna, I could convince myself she was fine. But bit by tiny bit the wall I was building ended up between us.

In the last several years any feeling of competence I ever had has completely eroded. I wake up most days unsure of myself, stressed about work and anxious about Emily. She needs help more than ever before but refuses it with every ounce of the self-assurance I’d foolishly encouraged her to develop. I spent over a decade acquiring advanced Emily-decoding skills, like one of those profilers they bring in on TV cop shows, able to look at a crime scene and tell you where the criminal grew up and whether or not he wears hats. But one day, somewhere around Emily’s thirteenth birthday, I’d woken up in enemy territory, having apparently parachuted in overnight, and none of those skills were any use at all.

“Did Alice say something to you?” I asked carefully. Not looking at her, like approaching a skittish horse.

“No,” said Emily. “You know, we barely know each other anymore.”

“You used to be friends.”

Emily shrugged. “Back in ninth grade, for about ten minutes. I don’t think you remember how time behaves in high school, Mom. Something can happen one week and be totally forgotten by the following one. Every six-hour school day has about fourteen hours in it.” She was still looking ahead, walking quickly to put distance between herself and Alice. “It’s a miracle of physics.”

I nodded, though I wasn’t sure I completely knew what she meant. My own life seems to be getting faster every week. However, I do remember my mother grounding me at fourteen, for something predictable like throwing an illicit party, and how the sentence of a month seemed impossibly long. I remember thinking no one at school would recognize me when I got out; they’d stand in the hallways and mutter to each other, Who’s the girl with the unbrushed hair and overgrown fingernails? She looks a little bit like Jessica . . . but didn’t Jessica move away or something? My mother had relented after two weeks, doubtless worn down by the endless whining and stomping about. As every parent of a teenager knows, grounding is a double-edged sword.

“Are you hungry?” I asked Emily.

“No,” my daughter replied firmly. I wasn’t fooled for a second. Emily is never hungry . . . until her blood sugar suddenly drops through the floor and she turns into a total monster.

“Well, I am,” I lied. “Let’s stop here.” We’d reached a reasonable-looking café, and I turned in without waiting for an answer.

The waitress turned out to be the pink-haired girl who’d shown the kids around Georgetown that morning, but she didn’t recognize Emily. She’d probably already had a busy day, what with showing a bunch of idiots around school and then rushing here for her afternoon shift. I’d waited tables in school; it was actually far more instructive for becoming an adult than anything I’d studied at Columbia.

“What can I get you ladies? Start with a drink?” The waitress was shooting for perky but falling slightly short. I felt sorry for her.