Slight WHAM/Kleenex warning.
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Coming of Age
By Bethy <bethyem@yahoo.com>
Written October 2001
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She didn't want to eat that morning. Whenever anyone asks me about that day, it's the first thing I remember. She didn't want to eat. It was understandable though. After all the stress of applications, and interviews, and more interviews, and then finally an acceptance, the first day of actual work was a relief -- for me. For Julia, though, it was a morning of tense excitement.
The alarm started blaring music at 5:17 a.m. Fred had brushed the volume dial all the way up with his tail again. I blearily reached over to slam it off, hoping for another nine minutes of oblivion, and then remembered what day it was.
Julia's first day at Smith, Jones, White and Goldberg. I was confident that it wouldn't be long before "Carlysle" was added to that list of partners at the prestigious law firm, though. She may have only been a first-time intern, but Julia had the will to rise quickly. She was
my daughter, after all.
I glanced over at the window, hoping that the day would be bright and calm. Traversing the chaos known as New York traffic is scary enough, she didn't need a storm to compound it. The dawning sun stabbed me right between the eyes and I grinned. It would be a good day.
Fred padded in and leapt onto my stomach, knocking the breath out of me. Casually, he padded up and down my legs, meowing.
"Hiya, Fred!" After Jack had died, I'd taken up the habit of speaking to anything and anyone that came near in the morning. "Do you know what day it is? No, you don't care, do you? You just want some food. Okay, I'm getting up."
I got up and ambled to the kitchen, Fred's meowing growing more insistent as I neared the food. After I slopped some in a dish to keep him happy, I went to the counter to get the coffee started. Julia had always hated coffee, and didn't see the need to become addicted to something she didn't even like, so I never tried to force it on her. I'd already developed the bad habit though.
I was leaning against the sink, savoring my coffee, when Julia came barreling in, holding her favorite of the new suits we had bought together. Most teenagers and college students wouldn't be caught dead at the mall with their mom, but Julia and I were special. She never had any siblings, or even close friends growing up. It didn't help that she grew up in an apartment complex populated mostly with older couples whose children were already grown. So every Friday we would go to the library and then we'd take turns reading our books aloud to each other all week. We were friends with the characters we met, and friends with each other. And selfishly, I was glad there weren't more kids around. I had the kind of relationship with Julia that I'd always wished I could have had with my mother.
"Mom! I just found a wrinkle in my skirt, but I still have to take a shower and do my hair and my make-up and I don't have time to iron it so could you please do it for me, I'll love you forever and ever, please?" She didn't even take a breath, but I knew she wouldn't appreciate my amusement so I simply nodded and gestured toward the kitchen table, saying, "Just leave it there, I'll do it." But I did let a small smile escape at her use of her childhood plea, "I'll love you forever and ever." My response always used to be, "You'll love me forever and ever, anyway," at which point she would groan and start to beg for whatever it was she wanted. I enjoyed watching her beg, even as we both knew I would give in, but today there was no time for me to indulge in our little game.
Her face relaxed as she carefully laid the skirt over the back of chair, and I knew I had been right to restrain myself. She hugged me and said, "I love you, Mom." And then she was off again.
Off again. Suddenly it hit me. She was starting to leave. Today she would leave for work, but who knew what tomorrow would bring. Soon she would get her own apartment, her own life, her own family, and she would leave me forever. Oh, she'd come back for holidays and special occasions, but it wouldn't be the same. I had gotten a reprieve when she stayed at home during college and law school, but somehow, until now, I'd managed to push away the knowledge that it wouldn't last. But now... Now that she was joining the 'real world,' I was going to have to give her up.
Hands shaking, I set my coffee cup on the counter. It took all my concentration not to let it spill. But I would not let my sudden bout of melancholy ruin Julia's special day. I could wallow later.
Still in my cotton pajama pants and oversized t-shirt, I set about rummaging through the linen closet for the ironing board. The most important task in front of me was to help Julia get ready to go. I wouldn't,
couldn't think about the future.
When I finished ironing, the shower was still running. Good, I had time to cook. After taking a quick gulp of my coffee, I pulled out the breakfast fixings I had bought especially for this day. I started frying the sausage, then plopped the frozen chunk of concentrated orange juice into a pitcher, losing myself in the ordinariness of cooking.
The sausage started sizzling, so I shuffled the patties around and then whisked some eggs for omelettes. I grated some cheese, chopped up the finished sausage and mixed it all together. On the first day of work, a good healthy start to the day was even more important than usual. And breakfast together would give me one last chance to be a mom to my baby.
The stove fan whirred as the sausage sputtered, so I didn't hear when Julia turned the shower off. She came running in, wearing only a slip, bra and nylons, her hair wrapped in a towelly turban, to grab her suit and then popped back out.
"Calm down, Honey, you're doing fine." My voice surprised me. Was that really me, sounding so calm, so confident?
"Yeah," she called back from the hallway, "but I
really can't be late on the first day!"
Shaking my head, I just smiled and flipped the omelettes. She couldn't be late on the first day? Who was she kidding? With Julia, she could
never be late. She wasn't capable of it.
I arranged her omelette on her favorite old Strawberry Shortcake plate, the one she'd loved ever since she was four years old, put mine on my matching Care Bears one, and mixed the thawed orange juice.
"Julia! Come eat your breakfast!"
She walked sedately in and my breath caught. She was beautiful. And so grown up and...
capable looking.
Yanking on her skirt, she asked, "Do I look all right?"
I carefully scrutinized every detail – she would never accept a mother's automatic "Wonderful." Her normally unruly auburn curls were twisted elegantly in a smooth chignon, her deep blue suit lay flat where it needed to and curved where it was supposed to, her make-up added just enough healthy color to hide the nervous pallor only a mother could see. But something was missing...
"Just a second." I raced into my room to get the pearls that Jack had given me on my last birthday, before he died. I gently clasped them around Julia's neck, turned her around and nodded in satisfaction.
"You look just perfect."
She gently fingered the pearls and asked, "Are you sure?"
I nodded. "This way you'll have a little bit of both of us, keeping watch over you on your big day."
Her mouth tightened as she tried to hold back tears. "No crying," I admonished, laughing even as tears rolled down my own cheeks. "You'll ruin your make-up."
"I'm fine," she said and smiled brilliantly.
"Good. Now eat your breakfast," I said, pretending sternness to hide my heart.
"Oh, Mom, it looks great. But I can't eat. My stomach is all fluttery and I have to go if I'm going to catch my train."
I didn't protest too much. One missed breakfast wouldn't kill her, and if she got too hungry, she'd find those granola bars I had snuck into her purse.
But despite my last-ditch efforts at mothering her, she really was grown up now, wasn't she? All these years she'd been "Sandi's daughter," and I'd been "Julia's mother." But now she was going out to simply be "Julia Carlysle" on her own. And I was left alone.
Oblivious to the devastating importance of this moment, she dropped a kiss on my cheek, grabbed her purse and flew out the door. In my mind I watched her hurry down the street by herself, enter the subway station by herself, and board the train to the World Trade Center – by herself. I saw her take the elevator to her new office and smiled as I remembered her response when she had discovered it was on the 98th floor – "Guess I won't be taking the stairs, then!" Then I cleared our cold, uneaten breakfasts and dumped my tepid coffee down the drain.
My baby was now officially grown up. I went to mark the day in on the wall calendar where we wrote everything from birthdays to dentist appointments to first days of work. The day my baby left me. And the day I finally began to let her go. I looked at the date, knowing I'd remember it forever.
September 11, 2001.
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