The teacher said, “Mrs. Padavano, I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you.”
“Ms. Padavano, if you don’t mind,” Julia said. “Not Mrs.”
Alice tilted her head, wondering if her mother would go further. She had heard Julia describe herself as a divorcée recently, but only because a nosy mother had made it impossible to deflect the question. Her mother clearly didn’t like saying the word. She normally said she was a single mother. “I say that,” she’d told Alice, “because the most important part of my life is being your mom.”
“Ms. Padavano, I wonder if you were aware of Alice’s report, which she presented to the class today?”
“No…I try to give her independence with her work,” Julia said. “She asks me when she needs help.”
Alice was seated at her small desk. She scuffed her feet against the linoleum floor. “I didn’t talk to my mom about the report. I worked on it in the library during after-school.”
“I figured,” the teacher said in a dry voice. “Ms. Padavano, I’ve been teaching in this school for thirty-two years, and I have never seen a child come up with a presentation like this one. The students are allowed to choose any subject they like—this helps them feel invested in their work—and then they have to do some very basic research and talk about the subject to the class. Your daughter gave a presentation on automobile accidents. She told us about all the celebrities who’ve died in car accidents, including details on how Jayne Mansfield was decapitated in a crash—”
“Oh my,” Julia murmured.
“Alice gave the class statistics on how many people die in car accidents every year. She made it sound like if a person sets foot in a car, they are risking death. And then she finished by showing us photos of wrecked cars.”
Julia looked at her daughter, her eyes wide.
“Several of the children in the class started to cry, Ms. Padavano. I can guarantee you that I will receive many phone calls from upset parents this weekend.”
“I’m so sorry,” Julia said. “I will speak to Alice.”
“I won’t be allowing her to speak to the class without running her ideas by me first.”
“Of course not. And I’ll make sure nothing like this happens again.” Julia had Alice by the hand and was walking her out of the classroom. On the sidewalk outside the school, she stopped. “What in the world?” Julia’s face was pale. “Why would you do that?”
Alice shrugged, even though her mother had told her that a shrug was an unacceptable response to a question. “I want your words,” Julia had said to her since she was small.
“Wait,” Julia said, “is this why you’ve been refusing to take taxis for the past year? Because you’re scared of cars?”
“I’m sorry you had to leave work,” Alice said. She normally stayed late and either attended an after-school program or read books in the school library. She was picked up by a babysitter or Julia, depending on the day. “I’m sorry I did something wrong.” She didn’t like to inconvenience her mother; Alice prided herself on not causing Julia difficulties. She got good report cards and often signed her own permission slips for field trips so Julia would have one less thing to do. Alice felt like school was her job, and she was disappointed in herself for screwing up.
Julia’s expression changed, as if an idea had just occurred to her. “Is this because of what…Is this because of your father?”
Alice shrugged again, but it was a weary one this time. “He would still be alive if he hadn’t gotten in that accident.”
After a moment, Julia said, “I see.”
“I didn’t think the kids were going to cry, Mama. I thought they’d find it interesting, and I wanted them to know that cars are very dangerous.”
“It sounds like you were successful, baby girl.”
That evening, they didn’t have their usual girls’ night, because Julia had a headache and needed to lie down. Alice ate popcorn with extra butter and used the remote to flip from one channel to the next. She put herself to bed, because her mother’s door was closed and she thought Julia might be asleep.
A half hour later, though, Alice’s mother opened the door to her room. “Are you awake?” she whispered from the doorway. Julia was wearing her nightgown, and her hair was down.
“Yes,” Alice said. “It always takes me at least nineteen minutes to fall asleep.” She kept track of this, out of curiosity. She had to think all the thoughts in her head before her body allowed her to sleep.
“I need to know…Are you feeling all right?” Julia said. “Are you sad about car accidents? Or”—she paused—“about anything? I need you to tell me if you’re sad.”
Her mother’s voice sounded so anxious that Alice thought, Am I supposed to be sad? She considered the question. “No,” she said, having made an internal inventory. “I don’t feel sad.”
“Wonderful,” her mother said, in her normal voice. “That’s wonderful. You go to sleep now, okay? I love you, baby girl.” And the door closed, and Julia was gone.
* * *
—
In middle school, Alice hit a relentless growth spurt. It felt like she and her body had been on the same path and then, one random day, her body headed in a different direction at full speed, and Alice was left wondering what was going on. She was always hungry, and Julia had to stock boxes of granola bars to get Alice from one meal to the next. Alice’s stomach would grumble so loudly in class that the kids around her would laugh, and she was mortified. She had stabbing aches in her thighs and lower back, which the pediatrician diagnosed as normal growing pains, but Alice, incredulous, thought, How can this be normal? The only thing that eased her discomfort was lying on the floor with her legs up against the wall, so that’s the position Alice was in most of the time when she was home from school. To her horror, bright-red streaks appeared on her back and upper arms—stretch marks—which the doctor said would fade but never completely disappear.
By the middle of sixth grade, Alice had passed her mother’s height: five feet four inches. Alice felt a new kind of sadness when this happened. Her body was galloping her away from childhood and away from her mother. Quickly, Alice was one inch taller than her mother, then three. She found she could reach items on the top shelf in their kitchen. She looked down at the top of her mother’s head and understood, for the first time, that her mother was just a woman. Julia wasn’t more special or stronger than anyone else, and clearly she would no longer be able to save Alice if she needed saving. If the house was on fire, Alice would have to pick up her mother and run, not the other way around. This reality made Alice feel panicked, and she had trouble sleeping for the first time in her life. She didn’t know what to do.
Alice was aware that her growing height discomfited her mother too. Julia often looked startled when Alice stood up out of a chair or entered the room. They shared a look that said, What is happening? The balance between them had been disrupted; now Julia had to look up at her middle-schooler when she spoke, and Alice looked down at her mother and thought, Can I trust you?