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“For forever.”
Emily
Now
Sunday
“Do you have your penny?” I ask my daughter as we take our first steps in the forest behind the bookstore. Her hand is in mine, but Olive is studying the ground as her sneakers hit the brush.
“Yes, Mom, I have it.” She holds up her hand, the copper circle stark against her pale palm.
“Excellent.”
“Mom, is thirty old?”
“No, no, it’s not, honey.” At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself for months. Thirty is not old; it’s just a new decade. My sister-in-law Annie has reassured me the thirties are her favorite so far, and I have to believe her or I’ll hyperventilate.
“You are younger than the other moms.”
“That is true,” I say. Olive’s best friend Kenzie’s mother Talia is forty-two, and when we get together for play dates, she tries to relate to me, but we have nothing in common. I spent my twenties raising a child while my friends got drunk and hooked up. My first time sleeping with a guy, I got a souvenir. Talia’s Europe backpacking stories used to make me sad, but I decided a long time ago to play the hand I was dealt.
Olive hops over a fallen log. “I’ll make a super good wish for you. Since thirty is a special birthday. A new decade!”
Olive’s birthday is not for another eight months, but it’ll be a big one. Ten. We talked about decades and how it’s special to enter a new one. When my daughter’s not watching, I’m breathing into a metaphorical paper bag.
No matter how many people tell me thirty is not old, I feel old.
I skipped ten years of being dumb and doing dumb things. That’s what your twenties are for, but I did none of it. I couldn’t drink on my twenty-first birthday because I was breastfeeding. When my mom babysits, I can drink and call one of Goldheart’s two Uber drivers, but it’s not the same.
Still, the little girl holding my hand and a penny in the other is worth it.
We reach the wishing well. As a girl, I would visit here with my mom on our birthdays. We would lean over and talk into the depths of the well, hoping for an answer to our questions. When my daughter was old enough to know what was going on, I started this birthday tradition with her. We would make wishes for each other. Around age six, Olive became very secretive, never telling me what she wished for, and whether it came true.
The well has seen better days— bugs have left holes in the wood, which has loosened from the nails, but it brings back so many memories. Olive at four holding my hand, me pregnant with her, visiting on my due date with a quarter in my hand. I wanted to make sure my wish was heard.
I got my wish. My daughter is happy and healthy. Who needs a dad when you have three loving uncles, adoring grandparents, and a beautiful house on acreage?
We look over into the darkness, the creaking of water echoing.
“Are you ready, Olive?” I ask.
“Yes, Mom.” She closes her eyes and parts her lips, her mouth moving with the words. When she opens her eyes, she flicks the coin, and it disappears into the pitch black.
“I wished extra hard today,” she says.
“For what?”
“You know I can’t tell you, Mom.”
“You never tell me if it comes true.”
“It hasn’t,” she says with authority. I wrap my arm around her thin shoulders, and she leans into my side. “I make the same wish every year.”
“You want me to get you a pet raccoon?”
“No, I’m over that. I’ve matured.”
I roll my eyes. My daughter’s raccoon obsession lasted for three years, just because we had a pair of friendly raccoons in our backyard we named Thelma and Louise.
