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Emma looks beautiful, her dark hair pulled into a messy bun, a rainbow-colored scarf thrown carelessly about her neck. She’s wearing a vintage corduroy coat and a long, patchwork skirt, the epitome of funky college artiness.
Last year, she was, like just about every other girl in her school, preppiness personified, but now she’s trying on clothes along with personalities, and it makes me both proud and anxious. I know this is part of growing up, but I just hope she finds herself in the end.
“Hey, sweetie.” Nick pulls her into a hug; somehow it’s easy for him, in a way that it isn’t for me right now, although it always was before. Wasn’t it?
“Emma.” I pat her shoulder clumsily, wondering why on earth I’m being so awkward. This is Emma. “You look wonderful.”
She gives me a look, wrinkling her nose, like I said something I shouldn’t have. I realize it was probably unwise to comment on her fashion choices, to make a point of the change.
“What have you been up to?”
She shrugs, and then nods towards the game. “Who’s winning?” she asks Nick.
“Dartmouth, but we’ve got them on the ropes.”
He’s mixing his sports, even I know that, but Emma doesn’t mind. She tucks her arm in Nick’s and they watch the game together while I stand there, freezing and awkward. I wonder if I’ve done something, if my hesitation about coming this weekend was hurtful, and this is some sort of punishment. Or am I just being way oversensitive, because everything feels so fragile right now?
I glance at my son, who is watching the game with an indifferent look on his face, his hands jammed into his pockets.
I decide to make an effort. “How are you, Josh?”
He glances at me, surprised, a bit disbelieving. “I’m okay,” he says in a tone that suggests why are you asking?
“Did you miss a practice, coming here this weekend?” I should know if he did, but Nick handles the weekend practices and I’ve forgotten the schedule.
Josh shrugs an affirmative; at least I think that’s what he does.
“I’m sorry about that.” Another shrug. “How is cross-country going?”
“It’s okay.” He stares straight ahead, seeming to be willing this conversation over.
I sigh.
“Well, we’re really proud of you, you know,” I tell him. “For all you do. Cross-country and baseball and, of course, your grades…” I trail off, because this is clearly agony to Josh, and frankly it’s agony to me. Why do teenagers have to be such hard work? I get more back from Dylan, even when he doesn’t speak.
I do my best to shake off my dark mood as we walk back to campus after the football game, for a families’ tea. Emma seems to sparkle as she chats with some friends, and Nick is all manly handshakes and relaxed laughter as he talks to another dad about the insurance business and then football. Josh has taken his phone out unabashedly, and I don’t tell him to put it away.
I make some desultory chitchat with another mother, a sleek, bobbed woman who is painfully thin and glossy-nailed, a criminal lawyer in Manhattan. My twenty hours’ bookkeeping for a couple of independent clothing and jewelry shops in West Hartford feels pathetic in comparison, and I am conscious that my nails are raggedy and I need to get my roots done. I’d been planning on splurging on some beauty treatments, but, of course, since Dylan came, I never got around to it.
I tell myself not to mind; both our daughters are at Harvard, after all. It’s a level playing field in that way, at least.
Later, as we head back to the hotel to change for dinner, Nick slings an arm around me. “Did you have a nice time?” he asks. We barely spoke to each other for the whole event; he stayed with the jovial dads and I listened to the preening mothers.
“Yes, a very nice time,” I say dutifully, because what else can I say? I don’t want to feel so out of sorts, I really don’t, but I do. It’s like a weight dragging me down, and Nick notices.
“Are you still worried about Emma?” he asks as we change in our hotel room for dinner at one of Cambridge’s best restaurants. “Or Dylan?” There’s no censure in his voice, but I tense anyway.
“Both, I suppose.” I slip on the little black dress that has done trusty service for nearly twenty years, wishing I’d bought something new for the occasion. “And Josh.”
“Josh?” Nick stills in buttoning up his crisp blue Ralph Lauren dress shirt. “Why are you worried about Josh?”
I hesitate, knowing now is not the time to mention the money I found. “Don’t you find him a bit… monosyllabic?”
Nick shrugs. “He’s a teenaged boy.”
“And maybe even a bit—hidden?”
“Hidden?”
