phone. “Ally? Would it be possible for you to take Dylan with you, if Beth agrees?”
“I don’t think so, no,” I’d said, my tone firm but also full of regret. “It’s a very hectic weekend… a lot of moving around… and my daughter…”
“I’ll see if I can find some respite carers.” Monica’s voice was brisk; she knew when not to push. A few hours later, she called me to say she’d found an older couple in Middletown who would take Dylan for the weekend. She didn’t tell me anything else, but already I had an image of some broken-down hovel with a grouchy old couple, and I nearly blurted that we’d take him to Boston, or that I wouldn’t go.
But of course I couldn’t do that. I’d finally called Emma back and she’d sounded so dreary on the phone, expecting me to back out of the weekend. “You’re not coming, right?” were the first doleful words out of her mouth. I couldn’t let her—or Nick—down. Or Josh, for that matter, although when it came to my son and the six hundred dollars I’d found in his drawer, I felt paralyzed, my mind frozen into a terrified stasis. I couldn’t think about it, and so I hadn’t, which felt like a terrible oversight. I had to tell Nick about it. I had to find the time.
Now, as we watch Dartmouth score a touchdown, I still haven’t let myself think about that money at all, and yet at the same time it feels like I’m always thinking of it. It’s there in my mind, like a lingering shadow. Why on earth does he have it? Does it belong to someone else? Has he been tutoring kids or mowing more lawns than I realized…? There has to be an innocent explanation for that money. I feel guilty for wondering for even a second that there might not be, for making it a thing.
“Emma’s going to meet us here, right?” I ask Nick, not for the first time, as I scan the bundled-up crowds along the side of the field. There is a jolly mood of slightly snobby camaraderie between everyone that I’d encountered when we’d come for a prospective parents’ weekend last May, a sort of smug, well-heeled attitude of having made it at last.
Last spring, I’d been thrilled to be part of that exclusive club, to join in the cabal of satisfied smugness, but now it all just makes me feel annoyed and restless.
“Yes, she’s coming, Ally,” Nick says as he stamps his feet to keep them warm. “She said she was. She’ll come when she comes.”
We’d seen Emma for a freshman families’ brunch that morning—an impressive buffet in one of the college’s oldest buildings. Emma had nibbled a bagel and spoken very little, and I hadn’t been able to help notice how thin she looked. She’d always been willowy, but the wrists poking out of the frayed cuffs of her sweater looked positively scrawny, and her face, usually heart-shaped and lovely, looked gaunt. Weren’t freshmen supposed to gain weight?
I hadn’t said anything about her weight, not wanting to fuss. Emma has always been highly motivated, highly strung, and while we’ve never really argued seriously, managing her moods sometimes feels like a bit of a tenuous high-wire act. Too sympathetic, and she gets annoyed and huffy. Too unbothered, and she becomes wounded and teary.
Over the years, I think I’ve figured out how to pitch it mostly right; of course I’ve had my missteps, as every mother has, but I’ve learned how to manage my daughter without seeming to do so. It is only now, as I reflect on how powerless I feel in this moment, that I wonder if managing someone is really ever a worthy goal.
This morning, while she picked at her bagel, I tried to act as if her silence was normal, and Nick filled it in with paternal bonhomie, while Josh kept sneaking glances at his phone. It all felt so much less than I wanted it to—where were the jokes, the laughter, the bonding and fun? It was challenging to get Emma to say anything more than “fine” or “okay.” While other students were still milling around with their parents, Emma said she had to meet some friends and she’d see us at the football game.
“She’s with friends, she’s having a good time,” Nick says now, in answer to my silent worry, and he gives me a reassuring smile. “This is what we’ve always wanted for her.”