Chapter 1: Jess
“Red light, Mom! There’s a red light coming up!”
The yellow light about to turn was something I had seen with no problem at all, but I hadn’t been prepared for the sound of my daughter's yelling. I slammed on the brakes of my little white Volvo, throwing both Emma and me forward in our seats. The seatbelt tightened, making me feel like I was suffocating, and I heard Emma make a little strangled sound as her own belt struck her across her throat. When I glanced back at the light, I saw that it was just, at that moment, turning from yellow to red. There had been no need whatsoever for the rapid stop. I rolled my eyes and glanced up at the rearview mirror, where I saw my beautiful ten-year-old girl smiling devilishly.
“Emma, what was that for? We had plenty of time. It would have been safer to stop more slowly.”
“Dunno. This was more interesting, you know?”
"Interesting isn't always better, baby. We're not trying to make things interesting. We're trying to get you to Aunt Sophie's place in one piece."
"But everything's fine, Mama! No big deal, right?"
I rolled my eyes again and hoped that Emma couldn't see the little smile playing at the corners of my mouth. She was only ten years old, but sometimes, I felt sure that she was going on thirty. The way she delivered her little one liners. She had a level of sarcasm and knowing in her that could make it difficult to remember she was only a kid.
I'd talked to Sophie about it a time or two, expressing my concern the way I was sure any mother would. It was probably because she'd had to grow up faster than a lot of little girls, Sophie had always said. Losing her daddy when she was only five years old was certainly enough to do it.
Being shuttled from one home to another would do it, too, and that was something that wasn't going to stop any time soon. Case in point, our current car trip. For the third time in less than a month, I was dropping my daughter off to stay with her aunt, my younger sister, so that I could do my job. Being a flight attendant was something I had always dreamed about, and it was something I mostly loved, but leaving my kid every other week? That part sucked, and there was no getting around it.
"Hey, Mama?"
“Hey, what?”
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked.
"That's not a very nice question!" I answered with a laugh, hoping Emma couldn't see how much her keen perception of me shook me up. "And there's nothing the matter with me. I'm just thinking, that's all."
“But thinking about what?”
“Nothing important,” I said.
“Thinking about something bad, I bet.”
“And why would you think that?”
"Because your head got all wrinkly. Your head always gets all wrinkly when you're thinking about something bad."
“No, Emma, I promise. I’m not thinking about anything bad.”
At least, I hoped it was nothing bad. I added that last part inside my own head as I worked on making sure my forehead remained unwrinkled. Emma was right, the little frown line in between my eyebrows was one of my tells. It was where my worry showed, unless I worked on suppressing it, and Emma appeared to know it.
It shouldn't have been surprising, either. She got the same line of worry on her own small face when something was bugging her. I thought about leaving our conversation where it was and then thought better of it. One thing I had always promised myself was that I would never lie to my daughter. It was a promise I had made directly after the death of her father, my husband, and one I intended to keep.
Not telling her what was on my mind wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't giving her any peace of mind, either. I was already about to drop her off and leave her for a couple of days, which was hard enough. The least I could do was drop her off with Sophie without her having to worry about what I had really been thinking about.
“Hey, baby, can I ask you something?”
“Is it about the thing you’re thinking about?” Emma asked.
“It is.”
"Okie dokie. What's up?"
“It’s about going to Aunt Sophie’s house.”
“Alrighty.”
“I’ve just been wondering, Emma. Does it bother you?”
“I love Aunt Sophie. I like her, too, so I like being with her.”
“I know you do, baby, but does it bother you how often I have to leave you with her? Does it bother you how often I’m away?”
She was quiet for a minute. The light turned green, and my foot pressed down on the gas pedal. Her silence made me nervous about what her answer might be, but at the same time, it made me proud. My baby girl wasn't the kind of kid to deliver an answer without thinking it through, and that was something any parent should be proud of. It was something I would always be impressed by, even when the answers she gave me weren't precisely what I wanted to hear.
“Yes and no,” she said finally.
“That sounds like a true answer. Want to explain it a little?”
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, her voice sounding adult enough that it gave me a little pang of anticipation of her growing up. “You like your job, right?”
“I do, sweetie. I really do.”
“That’s what I thought. I like that. I think everyone should like what they do.”
“I think so, too.”
“Right, so that part makes me really happy,” she said. “But I miss you sometimes, and that part is hard.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I miss you, too. I miss you so much when I’m not at home. Every time I’m in a new place, I think about what it would be like to be there with you instead of on my own.”
"But you aren't gone too much," Emma consoled, sounding even more adult than ever. "So you don't need to feel bad. And in a couple of years, I won't even have to go to Aunt Sophie's when you go away."
“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.
In my experience, few men were interested in dating a woman with a child in tow. They were generally only interested in unattached women. I had no intention of telling Emma that, of course. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings or make her feel like it was her fault. But that didn’t make it any less true.
The dating prospects for a woman like me were a veritable wasteland. It was something I had all but given up on. Of course, Emma didn’t need to know that, either.
As I pulled up in front of Sophie’s house and put the car in park, I turned and offered my daughter the biggest, best smile I could muster up.
“How about I make you a deal?” I asked.
“Okay! Wait, what? Is it something I’ll hate?”
“No, silly girl, nothing you’ll hate. You promise me that you’ll be extra good for Aunt Sophie, and I’ll agree to do my best to find somebody better to date. What do you think? Sound like a deal?”
“Deal!” she said, nodding. “That’s good because you’re gonna have to find a good boyfriend before I ever can, right?”
“Let’s just deal with one boyfriend at a time, okay sweet girl? One boyfriend at a time is just about all I can take.”