1) Get exasperated at your husband when he keeps asking, "Did she
call yet?" and tell him that they have likely left for the airport
already and that he should get a grip. Tell him—again—
that no one calls anyone anymore, anyway.
a) Check surreptitiously to make sure your phone isn't on silent.
i) It isn't.
b) Text Have a good flight! to your daughter.
i) Instantly get back a heart emoji.
ii) Which, when you show it to your husband,
causes him to reach out, grab your hand, and kiss it.
(1) Feel shitty for barking at him.
2) Go shopping so there will be stuff in the house that your daughter
can eat.
a) Pause and wonder if she is still on that stupid wedding diet
and is still making those iguana-green smoothies for lunch.
b) Toss some frozen peaches, a giant bag of spinach, and a
quart of non-fat yogurt into your cart since she probably is.
c) Toss in some Tate's chocolate chip cookies, her favorite,
in case she isn't.
i) Put them back and replace them with the oatmeal raisin
variety since you like those better and will be left with
chocolate chip if she doesn't eat them.
ii) Switch the cookies again since she really likes the
chocolate chip ones better and might not be dieting anymore.
(1) Plus, her fiancé will eat them.
(2) Wonder why you keep forgetting about him.
iii) Put two bags of chocolate chip cookies in the cart,
plus a bag of oatmeal cookies.
d) Wonder where you went wrong while raising a daughter who feels
compelled to look like a human twig in a white dress.
e) Wish Instagram would curl up and die, scattering its invidious
electrons all over the Universe.
i) Although you'd miss those giant cat videos.
(1) What are those anyway? Are they cats? Or are they
some kind of weird interspecies animal bred from jungle
cats and domestic cats?
(2) If so, is that even legal?
ii) Resolve to google it when you get home.
3) Put out fresh towels in the guestroom and set out some hydrangeas
from the yard in a vase.
a) Smile, remembering how much your daughter loves seeing flowers
upstairs when she visits.
b) Smile again, remembering how your daughter told you the last
time she was home that flowers in the guest room were
"on brand" for you.
i) Wonder briefly if you could write an essay about how
different types of mothering could be represented as
different "brands."
ii) Or an essay about how your daughter is flowering into a
woman like the flowers in the yard you keep neglecting to
fertilize—that is, with no help from you at all.
iii) Nah.
4) After you are done in the guest room, go into your daughter's old
room and sit on her bed.
a) Stare at the green and orange papier-mâché dragon still
dangling from the ceiling.
i) Remember that you bought it to celebrate her getting into
a traveling soccer team when she was fourteen.
ii) Not the "A" team, but the "B" team.
iii) Which was still pretty darn good given that the only
athletic talent expressed by your husband and your
collective genes consists of:
(1) The ability to throw — a hissy fit when working, and
caring for your parents and your children became
too much (you).
(2) The ability to kick — worries to the deeper recesses
of your brain, which works great until they pop up
at inappropriate times (your husband).
(3) The ability to run — on very few hours of sleep (both
of you).
b) Stare at your daughter's bookcase and wonder if you can
finally get her permission to give away her books.
i) Except for the battered Golden Compass books and all the
old classics of kiddie lit.
(1) Those are going nowhere.
(2) Not if you can help it.
ii) But definitely those soccer books and books on what to
do with a humanities major.
(1) Say a silent prayer of thanks that she ended up in
marketing, since there is very little call for Russian
Literature expertise these days.
(a) Although you once asked her what she actually
did, and she said she bullshits for a living.
(i) Which made you laugh, although you know
that that was probably pretty accurate.
(b) Wonder which part of her expensive Bryn Mawr
education made her into a successful marketer.
(c) Wonder what part of your parenting made her
into a successful bullshitter.
(i) Resolve not to think about that too much.
5) While sitting on your daughter's bed, suddenly remember that your
daughter's fiancé no longer drinks coffee or anything with caffeine.
a) Make another trip to the grocery store to buy herb tea.
i) Try to remember if he likes mint tea or hates it.
ii) It's one of the two, but which?
iii) Buy mint tea and two other kinds of herb tea.
b) Wonder why you keep forgetting about the fiancé.
i) Resolve to do better since he will be joining your family,
dummy, and you don't want him wondering if you even
like him.
(1) Which you do, it's just hard getting used to
thinking about him.
(2) I mean, you've had your daughter for over thirty
years, and you know her like you know your own pulse.
(3) And it's beyond strange that you can suddenly gain a
son, just like that.
(4) Not to mention that marriage can be hard on bright,
ambitious women, something that you discussed
ad nauseum with your girlfriends back in the seventies.
(5) Plus, you worry that the fiancé's confidence will
overwhelm your brilliant but slightly-less-confident
daughter, triggering every maternal instinct you possess.
(6) And then there's that other worry,
(a) the small one,
(b) the one that flitted through your head the
last time they visited,
(c) the one you try to ignore,
(d) that maybe your daughter won't need you as
much anymore once she has a family of her own.
(7) But it's happening, sweetheart, so buck the fuck up.
c) While at the store (again), remember that your daughter's fiancé
future son-in-law loved your homemade almond cookies the last
time he came over.
i) Throw in a few tubes of almond paste since you still have
time to make a batch.
ii) Consider putting them back since your daughter likes them
too and might still be on that wedding diet and it would be
mean to expect her to resist home-made cookies.
iii) Take out the almond paste since you don't want to be a
mean mother and add in a bag of out-of-season cherries
for $11.99 a pound.
(1) Justify your purchase in your head—what's money
for if you can't use it to feed your child?
(2) Especially when said child is subsisting on basically
ice and spinach smoothies.
iv) Toss in a couple of limes and some ginger since you seem
to remember she uses them for those smoothies-from-hell.
(1) Resolve not to call them that or to make a face as
she drinks them.
(2) Understand that you will probably fail at this.
(3) Understand that she won't hold it against you.
6) Finally get home and log on to FlightAware so you can follow your
daughter's flight.
a) Tell your husband it will land on time.
b) Not that it matters, he's been ready to leave for the airport
for two hours.
7) Make one last sweep of the guest room, remembering to put out
the fizzy water that your future son-in-law likes on the bedside
table, next to the hydrangeas.
a) See? You are really trying here.
8) Send your husband out to pick up the kids.
9) Open the bag of oatmeal cookies and check to see if there are any
new videos of giant cats while you wait for everyone to arrive home.
a) There aren't.
i) But the ones that are already up are honestly insane.
ii) Resolve to show them to your husband after the kids
leave and the house is, once again, silent.
(1) You will both need a distraction by then.
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Title image "Notes to Self" Copyright © The Summerset Review 2023.
