has said. I don’t want to. I already felt like a failure, but it was in a way that I could talk myself out of, as I reminded myself of all my successes with my children. Now I can’t. I failed without even knowing it, all along, all the time.
“I never meant to make you feel that way,” I say faintly. I feel as if I can hardly form the words. “I never wanted you to feel pressured. I thought… I thought you were pressuring yourself.”
“Even if I was, you didn’t mind,” Emma returns in that same matter-of-fact voice. “I think you liked it.”
I look away, not wanting to show her the naked hurt I know must be visible on my face. She makes me sound like some sort of maternal monster, and yet there is more than a grain of truth in her words.
Yes, I’d felt pride in the way Emma was, and all she’d achieved. What parent doesn’t want their child to be successful and driven? Is that so wrong? Yet if it had been a clear choice between success and happiness, of course I would have chosen the latter for her.
But, I realize, choices are so rarely that clear.
“I’m sorry,” I say at last, because what else can I say? “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I’m sorry you felt that you couldn’t tell me. I’m sorry—”
“Oh come on, Mom.” Emma stops my self-pitying litany, sounding a little bit irritable. “Don’t make yourself into a martyr. I’m not saying it was all your fault. It was Dad, too. And it was me. I’m not abdicating all my responsibility. I’m just trying to explain.”
From monster to martyr. I inhale deeply, trying to sound rational instead of devastated. “So it was this pressure that led you to… to…”
“To OD’ing on Xanax? Yeah, I guess.” Emma sounds, to my incredulity, almost amused. I think of what Josh said—they’re like Skittles were in your day, and I wonder if he was actually right. But Skittles don’t kill you. “I didn’t mean it,” Emma continues, and I can only stare. “If I’d meant it, I would have done it seriously—you know, razor blade in the bathtub or maybe hanging myself. There are YouTube videos you can watch to make sure you do it properly.”
“Don’t, Emma.” I can’t keep a visceral shudder from rippling through me. The thought of those videos, of young women or men watching them, suicide as commonplace, something merely tedious or practical… I shake my head. “Please don’t.”
Emma sighs. “Sorry. All I’m saying is, I think I knew I wouldn’t actually die. I was sharing a bedroom with Sasha. I knew she’d find me before too long.”
I think of Sasha’s frightened face at the hospital, the doctor’s serious expression. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do to your friend,” I say, and then wish I hadn’t. Emma looks wounded.
“It wasn’t like I was playing a prank.”
“I know—”
“It felt like a way out. To be able to leave Harvard that wasn’t just slinking away, another deadbeat dropout who couldn’t hack it.”
Slinking away would have been a hell of a lot easier. I close my eyes briefly as I try to summon yet more strength.
“Now you’re even more disappointed in me,” Emma says flatly.
“No, I’m not—”
“For trying to kill myself as well as quitting Harvard.” She shakes her head disbelievingly, as if I am meeting all her incredibly low expectations of me, and a sudden, surprising spark of anger fires through me.
“Don’t put words in my mouth, or thoughts in my head,” I snap. “You’ve just offloaded a ton of information on me, Emma, and I’m trying to process it. I’m trying to understand it. And I’m trying to figure out the best way to support you. But I am not disappointed in you, okay?” My voice has risen to something close to a shriek, which I recognize is not a good thing.
Emma gives me a level look. “You sure sound it,” she says, and with a groan of frustration I rise from the sofa. I have a sudden, frantic need to move, like there is an itch all over my body and I have to scratch it, but I can’t. I’m not allowed to.
Emma twists around to look at me as I pace the kitchen. “What are you doing?”
“I’m unloading the dishwasher,” I tell her, and I start to do just that.
She lets out a huff of breath, as if she can’t believe I think a clean