ZOE
On their
way home from the workshop, Leah said, “I’m impressed, Ma.”
They
were stopped at an intersection, waiting for the light to change. Zoe
looked at her daughter and smiled. “Thank you, honey. That’s
sweet.” This is my daughter, she thought. This is my Leah.
“I
mean it.” Leah turned the radio up. “You’re great with them.”
Why in
the world were they constantly fighting? Getting along required only
this: mutual respect.
The car
behind them honked. The light had turned. Startled, Zoe stepped too
heavily on the gas. The car jerked into the intersection.
Leah
grabbed the handhold above her door, letting out a yelp.
“Sorry,”
Zoe said sheepishly. “Think there’s a Success Skills workshop for
driving?”
“Driver’s
Ed,” Leah said, giggling. When they finally stopped laughing, she
said, “Can I ask you something, Mom?”
“Certainly,
sweetheart. Anything.”
“What
made you do it? The seminars, I mean.”
“Tough
question.” She’d been unhappy. No, unhappy was the wrong word.
Frustrated. Discontented, maybe. “Something,” Zoe said quietly,
“was missing.” She signaled their turn onto Main Street. Don’t
get her wrong: she loved her family. She squeezed Leah’s forearm.
Most days, she enjoyed her job. “How can I explain it?” She
wanted to make a difference. “I thought if I could help people make
important changes in their lives, I’d be doing something
worthwhile.”
“Was
it hard?” Leah reminded her of the long hours she’d spent
developing, organizing, and marketing her workshops. She reminded Zoe
of her so-called friends and colleagues, who’d warned her that in a
tiny suburb like theirs she’d never attract enough attendees to
make the venture worthwhile, who’d insisted that she was wasting
her time. “Don’t you get tired? Do you ever think about
quitting?”
“Sure,”
Zoe admitted. “Sometimes. Then I think about the women I’m
helping and I get excited again.” She told Leah about the cards and
letters she received after the workshops, thanking her, telling
her—she laughed—she was an angel. “The confidence I see in
their eyes at the end of the day. That’s what makes it all
worthwhile.”
After
that, Leah grew quiet.
They
passed a cornfield, the harvested stalks lying in the furrows, to be
shredded for compost. Soon the fields gave way to forest.
Leah
yawned. Within minutes, she was asleep.
Zoe
turned off the radio and plugged a CD into the changer. The Liszt
piano solos had been a gift from a student. “You’ll like the
freethinking music,” the woman had said, and she had been right.
Zoe
stroked Leah’s temples, pushing the hair out of her daughter’s
eyes. Zoe felt sick about their blowout yesterday. The business with
this Todd was her fault as much as Leah’s. If she’d paid closer
attention to her daughter, instead of allowing herself to be driven
by the demands of work, Leah would not have looked for affirmation
from a person like Corbett. That’s all in the past, Zoe vowed. From
now on, she planned to be available for her children. She’d
rearrange her patient schedule so that she was there when Justine
came home from school. She’d pick up Leah after practice; she’d
attend every game. She would set aside at least four hours of
individual, quality time, per week, for each of the girls. She’d
pack healthy, appetizing lunches. Bake cookies. Sew Halloween
outfits. She’d be the perfect mother. Better than perfect, she
thought, and brought herself up short. Let’s not get ahead of
ourselves. Let’s take this one step at a time.
On Old
Orchard Road, a mile from home, Leah opened her eyes, yawning. “I
was having this crazy dream,” she said, yawning again.
“What
were you dreaming about?”
Leah
rubbed her eyes. “I can’t remember. What’s this music?”
“Liszt.
Hungarian Rhapsodies. A student gave it to me. Like it?”
“It’s
cool,” Leah said, fingering her belly ring. “Kind of—wild.”
“It’s
gypsy music.” Zoe eyed the ring. “Did it hurt? Getting pierced?”
“Not
too much. You still mad?”
Zoe
squeezed Leah’s thigh. “No, sweets. But I wish you’d talked to
me first.”
“You
weren’t home,” Leah said, a hint of accusation in her tone.
“Sorry.
I’d like to have been there for you. That’s all I meant.”
“Dad
was pissed.” Leah scraped her thumbnail, chipping the garish blue
polish.
Zoe
remembered. Will had been angry with her, too. In the Tyler
household, by order of both parents, belly rings were forbidden. If
you’d stay on top of things, she might not have done this, he’d
charged, after the girls had gone to bed. “So it’s my fault?”
Zoe shot back. “Like you’re ever around?” The argument ended in
a stalemate. “Dad doesn’t mean to be so hard on you, honey. He
just worries.”
Slouching,
Leah slid her hands under her thighs. “He doesn’t need to.” She
wasn’t a baby.
“I
know, sweetie.” Zoe signaled their turn onto Lily Farm Road. “It’s
just, it’s scary being a parent. The decisions you make now—”
“Will
affect the rest of my life. God, Mom. Can’t you say something
different for once?”
“We’re
your parents, sweetie. It’s our job to provide guidance.”
Leah
bolted upright. “You are such a hypocrite. All day long you tell
those women to make their own decisions. Then you tell your own
daughter she’s supposed to listen to you?”
Zoe
tightened her grip on the wheel. True, she advised her students to
take control of their lives. But that was advice for adults. “You’ll
be an adult soon enough, Leah. Then you can make all your own
decisions. For now—”
“I’m
an adult already.”
“You’re
sixteen, honey. I know you feel like an adult—”
“Well,
guess what, Mom?“ Leah shifted aggressively toward her door. “In
November, I’ll be seventeen. You’ll have no say over me then.”
Zoe’s
jaw clenched. A therapist, she was well aware of the state law
governing the legal age of adulthood. “Until you’re a responsible
adult—living on your own—your father and I make the rules.”
“So
I’m irresponsible now?”
Zoe
caught herself, before she went on a rant about Corbett. She felt
closer to Leah today than she’d felt in ages. She refused to end
the day with a fight. She reached for Leah’s arm. “Honey, listen.
All I said is—”
Leah
jerked away. “You said I’m a baby.”
Patience,
Zoe told herself. Take a breath. She eased the Volvo alongside the
mailbox, pulled out the mail and set it on the console, then turned
into their driveway. “Honey,” she said, forcing a smile, “think
about it. How would you feel if your daughter came in at three—”
“Oh my
God,” Leah spat. “That’s why you were so big on me coming.”
She scooped her team jacket from the floor. “So you could get me
alone. Try to get me to dump him. I hate to break it to you, Mom. You
wasted your time. It’s up to me who I go out with.”
“Leah,
please.” Zoe stopped at the foot of the drive and pressed the
button to lift the garage door. Leah’s dollhouse sat on the metal
shelf at the back of the garage. When Leah was six, Zoe and Will had
bought two houses, one for each of the girls, at a yard sale. At
night, after the kids had gone to bed, they’d decorated the houses,
painting and papering the walls. She’d cut squares from scatter
rugs to carpet the floors, sewed tiny Cape Cod curtains for the
miniature windows. Until last summer, Leah had kept the dollhouse on
a table next to her bed. One day, she’d decided that she was too
old for a dollhouse, and carried it down here. Leah wasn’t a baby.
Zoe knew that. She wanted to protect her daughter; keep her safe. “I
didn’t say a word about your boyfriend.”
“Right,
so lie to me now.”
“Well,
honey, admit it, he’s not exactly a person any parent—”
Leah
clapped her hands over her ears.
“—wants
to see their child—”
“La,
la, la, la, la,” Leah sang.
“Listen
to me.” Zoe pried her daughter’s hands away from her head. “He’s
not good for you, honey. He’ll hurt you—”
“La,
la, la, la, la,” Leah trilled, her voice drowning Zoe’s.
“Damn
it, Leah. He used to be a roadie. This is not a good guy.”
“I
don’t need this.” Leah flipped the lock on her door.
Zoe
caught Leah’s wrist. “The kid sells drugs, for God’s sake.”
“You
tricked me,” Leah spat. “I’m done with you,” she shouted,
wrenching free. “I’m never going with you again. Anywhere. Ever.”
“No
problem,” Zoe spat back. She was sorry she’d talked the little
brat into coming. Big mistake. She should have known this would
happen. “Believe me, I have no intention of asking again.”
“I
hate you,” Leah cried. “I hate you. I’m not pretending I don’t
anymore.”
Leah
slammed the door, and went hurtling into the house.
The
histrionic gypsy music rang in Zoe’s ears. She slapped the dash,
her fingers fumbling with the dial, and cut the music off.
She’d
lost her cool, said all the wrong things. Leah was spewing words,
trying to hurt Zoe as much as Zoe had hurt her. Leah wanted
reassurance. She wanted to be told she was capable and smart. She
wanted to know that Zoe was proud of her, that she trusted her to
make her own decisions. Zoe had let her down. She’d seen the ache
in her daughter’s eyes, the disappointment. Maybe this was what
people meant by the term “growing pains,” not the pain children
experienced in their joints as their limbs grew, but the ache they
felt in their hearts.
Zoe
stared at the discarded playthings in their garage, Leah’s
dollhouse, her tricycle, her wooden blocks dissolving in a watery
blur. If only you knew how hard it is to watch you stumble, to see
you in pain. Pull yourself together, Zoe told herself. Don’t let
your failures defeat you. Yet here she was, her failures an anchor,
sucking her under the sea.
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