On the way home, Nina asked Joyce to sit in the backseat and sobbed on her shoulder. Joyce stroked Nina’s hair silently, remembering the days when she really could “make it all better” for her daughter. But what could she say now that wasn’t totally stupid? You had a good season? You’ll win next year?
At home, Nina shook her mother off, shut her door, and cried to her teammates on the phone. Joyce and Frank sat at the kitchen table, wrung out by the loss, wrecked by Nina’s disappointment. “It was so much easier when she was little,” Frank said, taking Joyce’s hand.
It occurred to Joyce, once again, that their entire relationship revolved around being parents. Less than a year after they’d got married, they’d started trying for a baby. After another year, they’d begun infertility workups and treatments, miscarriages, surgery, and finally her high-risk pregnancy.
The nurses oohed and aahed over the way Frank cared for Joyce through the months of hospital bed rest. And he’d been a champion in the labor room, huffing and puffing, weeping and beaming. “Hold on to this one, honey,” the anesthesiologist had advised.
She looked at Frank’s fingers, now interlaced with hers. They were good parents. Nina could be a royal pain in the ass at home, but her teachers loved her and she had loyal friends. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, Joyce knew. Nina was honest and bright. She would grow up to be a good person.
But there was no denying that she had crossed the threshold leading out of their lives. The end is near, Joyce thought, and laughed softly at the melodrama of the phrase.
“What?” asked Frank, smiling, waiting to be let in on the joke.
“We’re almost done.”
“With what?”
“Nina’s on her way out the door.”
“She’s only twelve.”
“Twelve going on twenty. It’s happening so fast.” Joyce thought about what the women in her book group had said about the speed of their kids’ high school years. “What are we going to do? She’s the center of our lives,” Joyce said, then more tentatively, “of us.”
Frank frowned. “Joyce, for crying out loud, we’ve got five more years until she goes to college.”
“But don’t you see the end of it from here? She’s changing so fast.”
“You’re rushing her.” He withdrew his hand. “She’s still a child, and I think that you’re letting her get away with murder on the grounds that she’s going to be a teenager.”
“Frank, she’s always been precocious. She talked early. She walked early. C’mon. It’s not just her attitude, it’s her body. She’s developing breasts, or haven’t you noticed?”
Frank stood up. “I think I’ll order pizza for dinner.”
“Are you kidding?” Joyce yelped.
“Would you rather have Chinese?”
Joyce stared after him as he went to ask Nina what she wanted to eat. Frank was worse off than she’d realized, but she lacked the energy — or maybe it was the inclination — to do anyth
ing about it.
The next morning, Sylvie’s family picked Nina up for a week on Cape Cod. Nina took the bag of brownies from Joyce’s hands, gave her a quick, sideways hug, got into the van, and didn’t look back.
Joyce felt her mood plummet. Now she had no reason to get up at seven, keep the refrigerator stocked with milk and juice, or even cook dinner. With Nina gone, Frank would probably work straight through until nine or ten every night.
She had to do something. Immediately. Joyce unplugged her computer and loaded it into the car. As she packed some extra underwear and T-shirts, she dialed Frank. “I’m going up to Gloucester.”
“Nina gone?” Frank asked sympathetically.
“Yes. I’m taking my computer.”
“Isn’t the laptop already there?”
“I hate that keyboard.”
“You never mentioned anything,” Frank said.
“Yeah, well, I do.”