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“Is that so?” I laughed, trying to look at both my daughter and the road at the same time. “How do you figure?”
“Cause I’ll be old enough to stay at home by myself, then. I won’t have to go anywhere. I’ll just be able to stay at home.”
“Oh no. No way, little lady. I don’t know who put that idea into your head, but a couple of years are not going to be enough for you to stay home on your own overnight.”
"Then how long?" she whined, the first giveaway in this particular conversation that she was still only a ten-year-old girl. "A couple of years is so long already!"
“Not long enough. You won’t be able to stay on your own overnight for a lot more years than a couple. Not until you’re thirty-five, at least.”
“Thirty-five?! No way!”
“Thirty-five at least, little lady. Maybe even longer.”
“Um, but that makes no sense.”
“How do you figure?”
"Because, Mama, you're only thirty! If you can go out by yourself on a plane, I can be by myself by the time I'm thirty. Right?"
"I don't know, sugar, we'll see. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with keeping you safe for longer than I was kept safe myself. Nothing wrong with that at all."
We drove in silence for a while then, and my mind went back ten years, back to when I was only twenty and getting married, while already three months pregnant. Twenty had seemed so old to me then, but now that I was ten years older, I understood how young it really was.
Emma would be there herself in only ten years’ time, and it would fly by in the blink of an eye. It was a joke, the idea of keeping her locked up in the house until thirty-five, but that didn't mean there wasn't a part of me that wished I could make it true. I wanted to protect her. I wanted to keep her safe from all of the hardships and pitfalls I'd experienced for myself, even if I wasn't quite sure how to manage it.
“Hey, Mama?”
“Hm?”
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Of course, you can, Emma, always. You can ask me anything you like.”
“It’s about boys.”
“Oh goodness, is it? Why, do you have a crush?”
“Nope, not me. I was just wondering about you.”
“What about me?” I asked.
“I was wondering if you’re seeing anybody cute?”
“Emma! What on earth would make you ask me a thing like that? Is it because you’re getting crushes of your own?”
It was one of those things I had to ask, but in my head, all I could think was, Please God, not yet. I looked at her in the rearview mirror again and saw her nose totally wrinkled, which flooded me with a sense of total relief. It was still a conversational topic I hadn't been expecting, but I was a hell of a lot happier with it being about me, than it being about her.
“Ew, gross! No, not for me. I mean you, Mama.”
“But why would you ask about something like that?”
“I dunno,” she said. “Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because you’re alone too much. And when you do go on dates, they aren’t good. The guys you go out with, Mama. I don’t think they’re any good.”
Sometimes a child said something that completely floored you, and this was one of those times. I hadn’t ever really considered what Emma might think of the very occasional dates I went on. I hadn’t thought she had ever really noticed them. Not only had she noticed, but she also didn’t approve. It made my heart hurt, as did the reason for the slim pickings available to me when it came to men.
