by Susan Wiggs
An official green-and-white sign marks the city limits. Elevation 40 Feet. Population 101,347.
Molly whips her head toward me. “Which way, left or right?”
“Left.”
My thumb traces the route, inching forward as each side street flips past. This place has no grid, just densely aligned roads, some only a block long, others leading nowhere. It’s like a web or a net. How will Molly get around in this strange, busy city? How is she going to find her way?
“You have to go left here. Can you make a left from this lane?”
A sense of change takes hold as the city rises around us; I am delivering my only child into un-charted territory. We’re here. Our arrival seems abrupt, even though the drive lasted for days. We go from one world to another in a matter of steps. One moment, we’re wending our way through a tangle of turnpikes and traffic jams, and the next, we find ourselves in a placid oasis of calm.
The quiet brick street looks like a movie set: trees gracefully shedding the first of their leaves, green rectangular yards crisscrossed by footpaths, colonial-style redbrick buildings with small-paned windows, their frames painted a fresh white. Gaslight fixtures line the sidewalks. The brick walkways bear generations of pockmarks and dents.
We stop and purchase a one-day parking permit. Cars and minivans and SUVs are parked along the curbs on both sides of the roadway. Shiny vehicles disgorge long-legged, laughing girls, slender boys staggering under boxes and cartons, mothers consulting lists, a father or two, standing around talking on cell phones or looking lost.
It’s a good thing Dan’s not here, after all. He hates feeling like a misfit.
Upperclassmen, facing their orientation groups and talking constantly, are showing the new students around. The tour guides walk backwards with impressive confidence, certain they won’t stumble.
Molly maneuvers the rumbling old SUV into the narrow street. It’s easily the largest noncommercial vehicle in sight. She pulls into a gap at the curbside, her mouth grim as she tries to align the big truck along the curb. “I won’t miss parking this beast,” she grumbles.
She switches off the engine. It dies with a shudder. I turn to find her looking at me, and for a moment, the two of us just sit, staring into each other’s eyes, not smiling, not talking, just…looking.
It’s amazing how much you can see in a face you love, all the layers of years, still visible in the present moment. The infant Molly, her eyes as blue now as they were then, round and open wide, staring upward at me. And my face, eighteen years ago, had filled the baby’s whole world.
“Okay,” Molly says suddenly, unbuckling her seat belt with a decisive click. “We’re here.” The car inhales the belt as she jumps out and slams the door.
A black Lexus trolls along the street, headed straight for Molly. Watch out. I nearly scream the warning, but the moment passes before I open my mouth. She steps up onto the curb, the car whizzes by and I sit alone in the passenger seat, my heartbeat a stampede of anxiety.
“Okay,” I mutter, echoing Molly. “We’re here.” The breeze carries a subtle chill, a whiff of dry leaves, the tang of autumn. If we were back home, I’d be posting the high school football schedule on the fridge and paging through bulb catalogs.
Molly has the cargo doors open and is staring at the lopsided stacks and bundles. Uncertainty creases her brow.
I offer a suggestion. “Maybe you’d better—”
“—check in first,” Molly finishes for her. “I was so going to do that.”
“You want me to come in with you?”
“That’s okay, Mom. It’ll probably only take a few minutes.”
“I’ll wait out here, then.”
The Suburban huddles in a rusty heap, disreputable, inferior compared to the gleaming, late-model cars with plates from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Virginia. In contrast to the forest-green and burgundy imports, the old Chevy, with its flaking paint job, is as garish and ungainly as a parade float left out in the rain.
The Joads go to college, I’m thinking, certain everyone is staring at me. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I focus on the shopping bag filled with my brand-new, never-worn clothes. I should have worn something special for today, comes the belated thought.
Old worries surface. I still find myself feeling inferior, the misfit, the one who gets picked last. Oh God. Does Molly feel inferior, or did I teach her better? I check her out to see if she’s self-conscious about the car. But no. Molly’s oblivious as she makes her way inside. She couldn’t care less what the car looks like, what state is on the license plate.
I call Dan. I’ve never been a big fan of mobile phones, but right now, I love my cell phone so much I would marry it. It’s proof that someone wants to talk to you. It saves you from having to loiter in a strange place, trying to appear as though you belong.
Molly called him this morning to talk about Travis. He doesn’t sound surprised. We backed off and she made her own choice.
“We’re here,” I tell Dan. “It’s amazing.”
“How’s our girl doing?”
“She didn’t have much to say about Travis. We’re not talking about it yet. I’m hoping she’ll just focus on getting settled here.” My gaze skips over the quad, currently an anthill of activity as students move in en masse. “Looks like there’s plenty to keep her busy.” I take a breath. “Speaking of which, I had a thought.”
“Lindy, not another orphan.”
“No. Not now, anyway. Saying goodbye to Molly is making me crazy, I admit it. What I’ve been thinking about is that I need a new life when I get back.”
“Something wrong with your old life?”
“Not at all, but without Molly there, I need a plan. So I thought… Don’t freak out.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m going to talk to Minerva about the shop.”
“What do you mean, talk to her?”
“About taking over the shop. She’s retiring, and I thought maybe…I could see if I can qualify for a small-business loan and…” I falter. Spoken aloud, it sounds silly. “Anyway, maybe it’s a crazy idea, but I think I can make it work.”
Silence.
“Dan?” I wait for him to tell me how foolish I’m being, especially now, with a kid in college.
“You can make anything work, Linda.”
It’s the last thing I expected to hear from him. “Really?”
“Hell, yeah. Don’t sound so surprised.”
“But…you never…I never knew you felt that way.”
“Sweetheart, I’ve always felt that way about you. Just because I didn’t say it every day doesn’t mean the sentiment’s not there.”
“You were such a skeptic about my last idea—”
“Adopting an orphan? Come on, Linda. This is hardly the same. This is something you want for you, not to fill some void left by Molly.”
I shut my eyes, catch my breath. When did I stop knowing this man? I never did; I just let the busy part of life get in the way. “Thank you.”
“I miss you,” he says. “I can’t wait to see you.”
His words ignite a rush of passion in me, an emotion as strong and fresh as the first time I felt it. “Same here,” I say, smiling.
Carrying a thick manila envelope, Molly comes out of the dorm, talking to a woman with a clipboard. The woman is about my age, early forties, but she wears her hair in a sleekly careless ponytail and sports an ethnic-print skirt, a trendy blouse and a tooled silver thumbring. Molly looks enchanted with her.
Acutely aware of my lap-creased jeans and the mustard stain on my sweatshirt, I chastise myself again for not wearing a selection from my new clothes. Then I put on my best smile, walk over to the sandstone steps and introduce myself.
“Linda,” the woman says. “I’m Ceci Gamble. The residential facilitator.” She has a slightly nasal voice and a distinctive, East Coast boarding-school accent.
The theme music of the Wicked Witch of the West buzzes in my head. Who is th
is exotic new mentor, poised to supplant me? “Nice to meet you. So is Molly all set to move in?”
“Absolutely. Everything’s in the information packet. Let me know if you need anything, anything at all.”
I smile in gratitude, quashing the sudden resentment, but Ceci Gamble is already turning away, her glossy ponytail flying. She greets another mother who is busy unloading a Mercedes station wagon with a Choate sticker on the back. They crow at each other, embrace, old chums from prep school or the country club. Girls stream past in groups, all talking, the autumn sun strong on their silky, straight hair as they mount the stairs to the freshman dorm.
For a fraction of a second, Molly looks uncertain, her full lower lip soft and vulnerable. She scrunches a hand into her hair. The beautiful corkscrew curls have been the bane of her existence for years, no matter how much her friends claim to covet them. She wishes for straight hair. Prep school hair. East Coast hair.
She’s the outsider here, after fitting in so comfortably in high school, playing varsity sports, winning music competitions, laughing on the phone, never at a loss for a friend or a date. She looks lost in the moment now, uncertain. Hesitation is written in her stance, though I’m the only one who can see it. I see the tiny girl afraid to take off her training wheels, jump into a pool, recite a poem for the class, endure her first piano recital, taste an oyster for the first time.
I was always the one pushing her to get past the fear and do it anyway. Dan tended to want to whisk her away from it all. Now I wonder if she felt the constant push-pull of our warring need to protect and promote. Then I remember her confidence in sports, in music, in academics. The gift of her hard work is that self-confidence. She’s going to be fine.
I can see her rally in the determined set of her chin. We head inside, to a building that once housed future scientists, jurists, artists and world leaders. Following the directions in the packet, we find a bare room, hung with the smell of Pine-Sol and airless summerlong neglect. Molly heads straight for the window and opens it wide.
The roommate hasn’t arrived. Kayla from Philadelphia is nowhere in sight. The barren room contains two phone jacks and wireless modem setups, two desks, twin consoles of drawers and shelves and the requisite two beds. We climb up and down the worn concrete stairs, bringing stuff from the truck to the room. “Want some help unpacking?” I ask.
“That’s all right. I’ll do it myself. That way, I’ll know where everything is.” She is clear on not wanting me to linger, to tuck shirts away in drawers, stack office supplies, stand in registration lines with her.
She tackles the first box—towels and toiletries. Then she opens another. Her face looks tense.
“Did you remember your alarm clock?” I ask a mundane question to distract her, but it doesn’t work. “Moll?” I ask, tentative, not pushing at all now. “What’s up?”
She pulls out the green-shaded desk lamp. “It’s broken. I wonder when it broke. Maybe when I slammed on the brakes to miss that deer.”
“It can be fixed. We could find a store, look for a replacement for the shade.”
“I don’t need it.”
“You’re the one who insisted on bringing it.”
“And I was wrong. So sue me. Geez, I can’t believe you’re still doing this,” she snaps.
“Doing what?”
“This… I don’t even know what to call it. You want me to be here, to have the whole college experience, but at the same time, you keep acting like I’ll fall apart any second. You don’t need to fix everything. You don’t need to be my human shield anymore. I’m not that fragile. I won’t break, I swear. Don’t feel like you have to protect me.”
“It’s my job to protect you.”
“Well, congrats. You’re finished. Now you can do something else.”
The breeze through the open window is reviving her curls.
“Why are you acting so annoyed?” I ask her. I’m getting annoyed, too.
“You always try to make everything easier for me. It’s like I live inside this artificial bubble you created. That’s what’s annoying. It’s my time. My life. My turn to screw up and suffer the consequences.”
“Your turn to succeed and be amazing.”
“Whatever. The point is, it’s my turn, Mom. What happened with Travis—just to remind you again, it was my decision. Not yours or Dad’s or even Travis’s. Mine, a hundred percent. Right or wrong, I own it, okay?”
“Of course.”
“So quit worrying.” She’s close to tears, her expression taut with suppressed panic.
My Molly is terrified. She’s afraid she’ll be lonely. Afraid she’ll fail. Afraid she won’t measure up.
“Aw, Moll.”
Her shoulders hunch. “What if I blow it? What if I disappoint you?”
Finally, I know what she needs. Maybe this is the whole point of the past week. She needs to be free of the weight of her parents’ expectations. “That will never happen.”
With a decisive air, she shoves the lamp into a trash can. She looks at me for a long time, her stare penetrating. I try to offer a reassuring smile. She doesn’t smile back. Instead, she says, “I’m worried about you, Mom.”
It’s the last thing I expected to hear. “Worrying is my job.”
“No, I mean it. We’ve had our moments, but you know I think you’re great. The thing that worries me is what you’re going to do now that I’m gone.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll do what I’ve always done.”
“What you’ve always done is be my mom. You need to figure out something else now.”
“There’s nothing to figure,” I say reassuringly. “I have a fulfilling life, great friends, a loving husband. I never defined myself as a mother and nothing else. I have other roles to play.”
“Really? Like what?”
“Lots of things. I just have to figure out which roles to pursue. I’ve been thinking of doing more volunteer work.”
Molly clearly notices my lack of enthusiasm. “You should do something you love.”
What I love is being your mom. I bite my tongue. I will not lay that on her. Setting my jaw until my back teeth ache, I take out her alarm clock and set it to local time.
Soon we’ll be living in different time zones.
“Mom, didn’t you used to say you wanted to finish your degree?”
“Yes, but I put it off when I—”
“You put it off,” Molly prods.
“I was so busy with everything else, it just wasn’t practical. Now it’s not important.”
“Are you sure? When was the last time you thought about it?”
“Say, I’ve got an idea—I could get my degree here, while you’re here. We could even get an apart—”
“Very funny.” Molly’s face flashes panic—no doubt she senses I’m only half joking. “Anyway, what’s stopping you now?”
“I’m not sure. Lack of ambition, maybe.” But there is something I do want, something I have only begun to believe in. “Your dad liked the idea of me taking over Pins & Needles.”
“Of course he liked it. It’s a perfect idea, are you kidding? You can do anything, Mom. I love the thought of you running the fabric store. I totally love it. I hope you go for it.”
Fear and uncertainty turn to something else— Hope. Excitement.
She takes out a small stack of framed pictures, gazes at a shot of her dad with Hoover.
“I know he wishes he could be here,” I tell her.
“No, he doesn’t. You think I don’t know why Dad didn’t come?” Molly is incredulous. “You think he stayed home because he doesn’t care? He’s my father. He didn’t come for the same reason he didn’t go to the vet with you last spring when Hoover was so sick. It’s not weakness or that he doesn’t care. It’s that he cares too much.”
“You know your father well.”
“You don’t need a college degree to figure Dad out.” She sets the photograph on a shelf in her dorm room and her gaze lingers on it. “Look w
hat you’re going back to, Mom. How can you not be happy?”
The tension in my chest unfurls on a wave of lightness. I am married to a man with a great heart. My daughter and I both know it.
“Where are you going to eat tonight?” I page through the orientation booklet. “The freshman dining room’s in Memorial Hall—”
“Don’t worry, Mom. I won’t starve. I’m still full from lunch. I might just settle for granola bars and juice.”
“You should go to the dining hall, even if you’re not hungry.” I bite my tongue. I have to stop with the you-shoulds.
I take out the quilt, which I’ve carefully folded and tied with a ribbon in her high school’s colors. “I want you to have this, a reminder of home. It’s not really finished, though,” I point out. “There’s a lot more I wanted to do to it.”
“It’s great.” She unties the ribbon and wafts the quilt over the bed. Sunlight falls across the crazy patchwork, the loopy quilting with its hidden messages.
“It’s not finished,” I say again, feeling a thrum of panic all out of proportion with the situation. “I thought I would finish it during the trip, and we’re here and it’s still not done.”
“It’s beautiful, Mom. I love it.”
“I still have to—”
“No, you don’t.”
“Maybe you could bring it home at Christmas break and I’ll work on it some more then.”
“Mom, would you stop?” Her sharp tone brings me up short. Out in the hallway of the dorm, we hear a clatter. Then someone shouts, “We need a cleanup on aisle one! I just dropped a blue raspberry slushie.” More noise and laughter ensue.
Very slowly and carefully, her hands brushing over the fabric, Molly folds the quilt in half, and half again. And again, revealing the soft, faded underside. She makes a perfect bow with the colored ribbon. “Listen, Mom, don’t freak out, okay? But this doesn’t belong here, in a dorm room.”
“What?”
“I mean, I appreciate it and all, but this is a dorm room. And the quilt is a wonderful, one-of-a-kind work of art. I don’t want it to get damaged. I don’t want it being used to mop up spilled beer or whatever, not that I would do that but who knows about other kids?”
