I Was Told It Would Get Easier(43)

“Did Mrs. Bandin call anyone else in?” I asked suddenly.

“No,” said Sienna, “are you even listening to me?”

“Yeah,” I said, “what about your safety schools?”

After another few minutes I suddenly remembered where I was and shot back out to the restaurant, surprised Mom hadn’t come looking for me.

But they were talking and hadn’t even noticed my long absence.





JESSICA


Emily went off to the bathroom, and my father cleared his throat. “Is Emily a good student?”

I looked at my dad and wondered about his definition of good. “She maintains a steady B. She tries hard, she does her work. I don’t think she’s a rocket scientist. She’s still better and happier drawing and making stuff than she is at schoolwork. Always has been.”

His eyebrows drew together the way they did at least once in every conversation we’d ever had.

“Sure, but now she’s a young woman, not a child. Time to put aside childish things, correct?”

I tried to channel my mother’s neutral tone. She frequently disagreed with my father, but never made him frown the way I did. “News flash, Dad, adults draw and make things, too.”

“Maybe she could be an architect?”

I sighed to cover my irritation. “Dad, she’s sixteen, she doesn’t know yet. She’s struggling right now, you need to leave her alone.”

“We left you alone and look what happened.”

I frowned at him, my eyebrows a perfect echo of his, not that I could see it. “What happened? I got my degree, finished law school, moved to LA, succeeded despite being a single parent, and now I’m a partner and making a frankly ridiculous salary. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

He was silent for a moment. “It’s what I wanted for you. Your mother thought you would have been happier staying in school.”

I laughed. “What, forever?”

He shrugged. “She thought you were too deep a thinker for the law, not pragmatic enough for the constant compromise.”

I was surprised. “This is news to me. She never told me that.” My mother had talked to me constantly, her voice the birdsong of my childhood. I wish I could remember more of what she actually said. Listening might have helped.

He shrugged again and moved the knife on his plate. “You never asked her opinion. You went off to college and we rarely saw you, then you were at law school and we saw you maybe twice a year, and then you were pregnant.” He drank his wine, unable to sit still for a moment. “At least then she felt needed. Helping you with the baby made her very happy, although it was bittersweet.”

I refilled my glass, largely to give myself a moment to think. My mom had only rarely given me her opinion, whereas my dad had an opinion about everything. He and I argued all the time about this and that, starting when I was around nine and really settling in once I was a teenager. My mom used to roll her eyes when we started and go outside to smoke (later on I’d banned her from smoking in her own home when I was there with Emily, something I feel a little guilty about now). I regret not going and sitting with her outside every time she left the room; I wish I’d spent more time asking about her rather than telling her about me. We’d spent time every summer with my parents at their country house in West Virginia, but I’d seen it as a chance to rest while she played with Emily and watched her build her forts or make dams in the stream. She and Emily were so happy together, I felt fine leaving them alone. Now I wish I’d joined in more.

Dad was still talking. “She always felt she’d given up a lot once she had you two, and she wanted you both to have as much freedom from responsibility as possible.” He cleared his throat. “Not that she regretted having you two, she loved being a mom. But when Emily came along, she was sad, not because she didn’t love children, but because she loved you. She wanted you to have more time to yourself. More space.”

I wasn’t sure how to process that, so I said, “Did she miss working?” My mom had been a graphic designer, working in an advertising agency in New York when she met my dad. He was already in DC; they’d met at a wedding. For a year or two they’d dated on and off, then she’d moved to an agency in DC and they got married. I realized I’d never heard her talk much about her career. Maybe I wasn’t listening, the same way Emily wasn’t listening to me.

Dad nodded. “Sometimes, although she never really loved her work. She was much happier puttering around the house, putting up shelves, or whatever it was she did in that workshop she had. Besides, this was the seventies, remember? Everyone thinks it was a time of social revolution, but after taking a few years off when you two were small, it was really hard for her to find another job she actually wanted.” He caught the waiter’s eye and signaled for the check. “Employers knew women would put their children first, and felt comfortable not hiring them because of it.” He looked at me. “These days I would probably get fired for saying that, despite the fact that it’s true.”

“Not all women, Dad.”

He shrugged. “Your mom used to say she’d made a trade, and sometimes it felt worth it and other times”—he made a face—“like when you stayed out all night in tenth grade and she nearly called the police, it didn’t.”