respiration rate kicked up to the fight or flight mode. "Where have you been?"
Missy gave her the vaguely bored look of the young adult who knew things about the world an old adult couldn’t begin to comprehend. "Calm down, Mother. You’ve been giving me the warning talks about boys since I was eleven, and it’s not about that. It’s all about the music. The whole band’s been crashing at Austin’s. His neighbor Zac’s got this garage and is very great about letting us set up in it. Was. We’re on the road now."
Gwen knew if she thought too much about any one of the details in front of her, her brain would extinguish in a puff of smoke. She had to focus on the biggest fire, and if Missy hadn’t even been seeing her father, Gwen would have to handle the blaze alone. Handle it firmly but with a dash of empathy so it didn’t smolder too long. "But you're on the road to college, Missy. You’ve only just finished high school. You--"
"I’m eighteen." Missy laughed. "I’m not a kid, Mom."
Shit. She couldn’t tackle anything from that front. Technically the girl was an adult but please. There must be another approach. "The university’s expecting you, you know. There are all those new things packed in the car."
"Like you didn’t keep receipts? Please. And the university doesn’t care."
"I do. I care." She felt her heart beating in panic. Seeing her child throw her education away hurt even more than when she’d tossed her own aside.
"You care about making me do what you want me to do."
"That’s not true. I want what’s best for you. I always have, and your father--"
Missy lifted her arms, "gone."
Gwen felt her breath taken at the casual dismissal of twenty years.
"Gone, Mom. Not coming back. You know, he’s working on the divorce papers and everything, and I’m not staying. I’m not doing what you or anybody else wants me to do. Ever. That’s why Austin has been so completely great for me. He just lets me be. Sometimes I don’t see him for days because he’s making music. And now I’m making music. You just wait here, but Dad’s not coming back. Who are you waiting for?"
No one. She was alone with nothing, so much nothing she couldn’t even answer Missy’s question by saying no one. No one had more presence, more life than she could imagine. But Missy had so much ahead of her. "I want you to have an education, get a degree. You can do anything you want to do."
"I’m doing exactly what I want to do." Missy gave her a half-smile from the doorway.
Gwen wanted to leap up and hold her girl so close she could smell her shampoo and feel the warmth of her, but Missy not hugging her back right then would do her in. She waited, closed her eyes as Missy turned to leave. "You want an education, Mom, go get one."
She wasn’t sure how she’d gotten under the dining room table, how the phone had made it too. And the wine. The corkscrew. The wineglass with her favorite charm, the silver and gold hot pepper. She wasn’t sure how long ago Missy had been gone, waving goodbye like she hadn’t just dropped out of college, if a person could even drop out without first dropping in. Her only child had waved goodbye like she hadn’t just filleted open her mother’s life and found the innards pathetic. There was only one thing for a woman to do, and she knew it was a mistake even as she dialed.
"Hello?"
"Mother?"
"Gwen? I can hardly hear you."
"I’m under the dining room table."
"You broke a hip!"
"I’m not seventy. You are." Gwen considered she might come from a long line of women who were a little bit mean to their mothers. "Sorry, Mom."
"Oh, what a relief. I thought you said you were under the dining room table."
"I am. I’m sorry about the seventy thing. You could pass for sixty any day."
"I’ll be right there."
"Mom?"
"I’m not talking to you until you come out."
Gwen sighed, continued to study the underside of the table. It looked like a large wheel with wooden spokes radiating out from the center. Above, where she could hear her mother’s tea cup tap periodically, it was nothing but smooth wood, all one piece and lovely. Underneath, it had the feel of a job-site, like things were a bit jimmied. But the table was quality, so all things might look like that on the underside.