I Was Told It Would Get Easier(6)
Not to mention the development of new, albeit nontransferable skills: the ability to pause like a hare and hear the sound of crayons moving over wallpaper three rooms away. The mastery of pea balancing on a shallow plate so none of them roll into the string cheese (thereby rendering themselves inedible and possibly deadly). And, of course, changing diapers in complete darkness, without waking the baby, while tears of exhaustion drip from your chin. I nailed them all. It’s the world’s most wonderful and most terrible job, and if you do it well enough, you get fired.
After the toddler wars were fought and won, I moved into what was, for me, Peak Kid. Six to twelve. The golden years. Emily loved me, she listened to me, she thought I knew everything. She ate well, she slept well, she laughed at fart jokes, she told fart jokes . . . it was great. When she said Mom it was with love, or with a specific request that could usually be responded to with a sandwich, a tissue, or a firm not in a million years.
As a single parent I didn’t really have the option of staying home, not that it would have worked for me, to be honest, and I’d returned to work once Emily was old enough. I had my mom to help at first, and then I moved to Los Angeles and hired a nanny. I worked long hours, I got promoted, I felt fulfilled personally and professionally, and I managed to balance motherhood and career flawlessly.
No, of course I’m joking. It was occasional sparkling moments of triumph dotted over long stretches of uncertainty and failure. There were days when I felt I’d managed, and days where I knew if I hadn’t had the help of several other women, both at home and at work, I would have dug my own grave and climbed in.
Just when I thought I was finally getting a little better at the balancing act, when Emily was happy at school and work was going well, and I was senior enough to be able to leave at a reasonable hour to eat dinner with my kid, and have weekends free to spend with her, everything changed. She woke up a teenager, and all the skills I’d learned were useless, and all the time I’d fought to have with her was spent waiting for her to come home from hanging out with friends she’d much rather talk to than me.
If I said it was awesome, you’d know I was being sarcastic, right?
That’s what I thought.
I went to the grocery store to pick up dinner, and to ponder whether or not to tell Emily I’d just potentially torpedoed her tuition money.
* * *
? ? ?
When I came back, there was a different quality to the silence.
“Em?”
Still nothing, but I noticed her sneakers by the door. She was home, presumably lurking in her dank, bone-strewn lair upstairs. Hopefully packing for the trip.
If my life were a Choose Your Own Adventure book, I’d have two options at this point. One, walk into the kitchen and not check on Emily. Have a cup of coffee and unload the dishwasher. Stare into the middle distance and adjust my underwire. Or two, go upstairs and speak directly to my daughter, because she’s probably got headphones in and can’t hear me calling. That would lead to another fork in the road: She could nod pleasantly, we might exchange a smile, maybe even a hug, and she’d reassure me her packing was all done. Or—and this had a high probability—she’d frown at me as I appeared in her doorway, tug out a single earbud, raise her eyebrows at me, and say, What? in a tone of voice that implied I was interrupting her solving the problem of clean, limitless energy. I’d feel a tiny pang of pain, tempered with irritation at being talked to like that, and ask her about the packing. She’d shrug and say, Of course, as if being unprepared is something alien to her, and implying my lack of trust is hobbling her ability to grow as an individual. Then, two days into the trip, we’d discover she’d forgotten to pack even a single pair of socks and the rest of the week would be spent with I told you so hanging over us like an unacknowledged fart.
My mother didn’t raise no fool. I walked into the kitchen and turned on the kettle.
EMILY
I checked my list again: seven days of underwear, extra shoes, soap, socks, and sanitary protection . . . check, check, check. Dude, I am so on it.
I paused. Was that Mom? Silence, then distant noises from the kitchen. Guess she didn’t even want to say hello to me. Charming.
I checked my list a second time and threw in another pair of socks. My mom might not have been interested in my life, but she definitely taught me how to pack.
Sunday
Los Angeles to Washington
Fly to Washington, DC
Check into hotel
3
JESSICA
Emily, who up until that moment had been silently gazing at her phone as if frozen to a stump, suddenly said, “Mother, the Lyft is here and he’s only going to wait three minutes.” She shifted her feet in my old Converse high-tops. I love that she wears them, not that I could ever tell her that. I have to pretend to be vaguely irritated, to make the theft more fun.
“Why?” I was hunting through my purse for something, but I’ve now completely forgotten what. I’m telling you, I’ve got a brain tumor the size of a clementine.
“Because that’s what it says on the app.” The ancient Greeks had the oracle of Delphi; we have an app for that.
I gave up my hunt for whatever it was. “Well, go start putting your bags in the trunk, then, and see what the actual driver says. He’s probably more flexible than an app.”