Page 109 of The Lookback
I’ve beenblind.
But I’m seeing it now. Abby walks up and slides her arm through mine. I wait for it, but the I-told-you-so I’ve been dreading never comes. “It’s hard,” she whispers. “So, so hard.”
“What is?” I force myself to turn and look at her perfect face.
“Watching them grow up.”
A tear forms in my right eye, and it slides its way down my cheek. “She’s still a baby.”
“It hurts when they don’t need us anymore,” Abby whispers. “But don’t worry. They always come back, because they will always need us in some ways. That part never changes.”
“Not me—she doesn’t.” Now there’s more than one tear. “She hates me now, and even before, she knows she drew the short straw.”
Abby drops her head on my shoulder. “That little girl knows how blessed she is.”
As if she can hear us, Maren launches into a cover of “I’m not Lucky, I’m Blessed.” By the time it ends, I’ve definitely wrecked my makeup.
“I hate this,” I say.
“Admitting when you’re wrong?” Abby asks. “Or letting her go?”
“Option C, all of the above.”
“A few years ago, you couldn’t have done it,” Abby says. “I’m proud of how you’ve grown.”
It takes me a few more minutes to compose myself, and another ten minutes after that to be ready, but by the time Maren’s done with her set, I’m prepared. When I tell her I’m sorry, when I tell her she can record her album, Maren leaps into my arms, her hands wrapping around my ribcage.
No one ever actually tells me that they told me so, even though they all did.
And I never do feel much better about the record label. I won’t trust them until the day I die. But when I think about how my family now boasts connections to the dean of Harvard’s Business School and a half dozen powerful CEOs, I can’t help smiling.
I might have come from a trailer park, and my parents might still be willing to trade me in for a pack of double-mint gum, but my daughter isn’t like that. My daughter has an army of people behind her, all of us willing to attack and destroy if she’s threatened.
I’m not sure I could hope for anything more than this, to have created a family that’s so much more than the one I was born into. It’s the American dream, really, to grow a life for your kids that’s better than you ever imagined it could be.
And I’m living it every day.
26
MANDY
The first snowstorm of the year hits right before Emery’s performance. I’m honestly worried that it’ll be canceled, but the snow flurries let up just in time, and Horace gets out his plow, and the roads are cleared by early Saturday afternoon.
HOW’S IT GOING?I text Emery, because watching Tommy type out a text is a very special kind of purgatory. He refuses to wear reading glasses, so he keeps shifting the phone farther and closer and peering at it, pecking at the buttons one single letter at a time, then backspacing and starting over.
Luckily, they havejustenough time for the dress rehearsal if there aren’t any hiccups. I know EmeryandTommy are both nervous. I try reminding them that it’s not Broadway, and they shouldn’t worry, but that doesn’t go well. Apparently performing a play for a hundred of your closest friends is way more pressure than performing on Broadway.
Who knew?
Helen swings by to pick me up in her new four wheel drive BMW, as if that’s really all-terrain. I sigh, but I don’t argue. Trying to win a fight with Helen on a good day is futile. But trying now? When she’s pregnant-cranky?
It’s a death wish.
“Hey, Mandy,” David says, as I use the side of her car to anchor myself while I climb into the back, batting at his hand.
“I don’t need help,” I say. “I told you that.”
“Did you know that even breaking a hip at your age makes you seventy percent more likely to die in the month after it happens?” Helen tsks. “Just let us help you, you cantankerous old woman.”
