Her heart crumpled when Caitlin spoke these words. Her daughter had been more impacted by Alex Orlov than she had realized.
However, a screaming, tear-filled, door-slamming fight accompanied the pronouncement about dramatically limiting screen time. She felt like they’d taken one step forward and two steps back.
And then her mother-in-law weighed in.
“Perhaps this isn’t a completely rational idea,” Brendan’s mother said over lunch at Le Petite, an adorable French restaurant in Old Town, on a chilly Monday at a few minutes after noon. Piper had always wanted to try this place, and the food was fantastic, but Sylvia was giving her indigestion.
Piper swallowed her sole and tried to formulate an answer.
Her father-in-law was a college administrator, and her mother-in-law taught English at a prestigious all-boys prep school in Connecticut.
Brendan and Piper had intended to speak with Sylvia, to get her advice and thoughts, but the girls beat them to it. They’d called Grandma right away to share the news about the Experiment.
Sylvia had immediately taken two days off and made a special trip down from Connecticut to speak with Piper and Brendan about this decision. And, of course, as fate would have it, Brendan was called out of town at the last minute, leaving Piper to face her mother-in-lawalone.
Piper knew it had almost given her mother-in-law a heart attack when her son joined the Marine Corps after college instead of pursuing a PhD or attending law school. And then when Brendan went on to join the diplomatic corps, not as a diplomat, but as the gun-toting person whoprotectedthe diplomats, it almost caused an irreconcilable rift in their relationship.
And nowthis, her own grandchildren removed from their excellent blue-ribbon public school to be homeschooled by their hapless mother. It was clearly too much for this well-dressed, highly educated woman with a PhD in elementary education from Columbia. Piper could read all this in the way her mother-in-law clenched her fork.
“I just don’t understand what you’re hoping toaccomplishhere,” Sylvia said.
“We’re hoping to accomplish sanity.” Piper patted her mouth with her napkin. “And peace. Balance. Togetherness.”
“Yes, and that’s all very nice, but what about theireducation?”
Piper toyed with her delicious sole meunière. Part of her wanted to confess the truth, to admit that she knew teaching was the hardest job on the planet and that deep down she was terrified she and other mothers didn’t have what it took to educate their own kids.
But Sylvia wasnotthe kind of person to whom one admitted deep-seated insecurities.
Instead, Piper kept her answer vague. She felt like a politician answering a question without answering the question. “We are working hard to prepare, and I’m confident we can handle it.”
Her mother-in-law raised an eyebrow and lifted her wineglass to her lips, taking a small judicious sip. “These elementary and middle school years are vitally important. Did you know that a recent study has shown adisparity in paybetween adults who had an experienced kindergarten teacher and adults who had a first-year kindergarten teacher?”
Piper clenched her napkin. “Really.”
Sylvia leaned across the table. “Look, Piper, I know you mean well, but I’m not sure you see thebig picturehere.”
“And what’s that?” Piper asked, her voice tight.
“I routinely see boys with a 1580 or 1590 on the SAT with a million extracurriculars get wait-listed at second-tier schools. The college-application process gets more competitive every year, and to pull these girls out of a perfectly good public school during these critical elementary and middle school years, well, it’s justirresponsible.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Piper said stiffly.
“Let’s talk about what’s really going on here, Piper.” Her mother-in-law leaned back in her chair.
Piper blinked. “Something else is going on here?”
“It’s yourjob.” Sylvia put her fork down with a sharp clink. “Your lack ofdirection. Have you considered going back to school, getting your master’s? They have an excellent program for working adults at Georgetown. It would fill this void you have in your life right now that you seem to be filling withtrad wife nonsenselike homeschooling.”
“Trad wife nonsense?” Piper almost snorted. And how did her mother-in-law evenknowabout trad wives? They must have done a story on NPR.
“That’s what this seems to be about.” Sylvia waved her wineglass in the air. “Some sort ofback-to-the-landmovement.”
Piper sighed. “All we want is to keep the girls safe and happy. So we’re going to keep them home, just for the rest of the year, and then we’ll reevaluate.”
Sylvia leaned across the table and hissed in a low voice. “You young women today have no idea how good you have it.”
Piper’s shoulders rose a few inches as she braced for a lecture. “What do you mean?”
