Bye Birdie, For Now

At midnight, I had busied myself with all sorts of house straightening, undoing some of the disorder I’d managed to overlook — repeatedly and without much effort — for months. A taxi would be picking us up in less than five hours, and I had not yet packed. I was delaying the inevitable; tossing my things into the three square inches of space allotted to me in one of the suitcases would make it official — the end of summer, the resumed emptying of my nest.

I didn’t even mind the loud dissonant medley being belted out by the small crowd of “besties” gathered in my daughter’s room. College sophomores now, they will continue to send each other off this way for the next week or two, faces slowly disappearing from the obligatory selfie until there’s nobody left. Everything will suddenly seem tidy again, and very quiet.

As her summer break wound down, I began to wonder how the three and a half months of renewed togetherness that had seemed so daunting back in May had flown by so quickly. She denies it, but I can tell by the way she looks at me that she’s worried about how I’ll get by on my own. She thinks I’ll flounder without her guidance. I’ll manage without the guidance; it’s her proximity that I’ll miss. Our morning walks to Starbucks, even when we barely speak. Our tap dances around each others’ moods. Our occasional dinners together, squeezed in between other plans. Figuring out where she hid her keys so I can juggle the cars in our narrow driveway. Cleaning up the mess from her occasional baking episodes, because she really believes I enjoy cleaning the kitchen. Limitless private jokes, an uncanny tendency to say the same thing at the same time.

Life leaves an indelible thumb print on the fast forward button. A bleary eyed woman approached me at my New Orleans hotel this morning as I was getting coffee. “Did you just drop someone off?” she asked. I guessed right. It was her first. Her son no longer needed her, and she would just be hanging around today, killing time until the late flight she had booked — just in case. I reassured her, told her he’d be fine. What I meant to tell her was she’d be fine, but I don’t think she would have believed me.

This year, the drop off was just an aside. I am here for a few days, and we will enjoy the city together, one forkful at a time. After only eight months here, she seems to know the New Orleans like the back of her hand, even the potholes that keep turning my insides into gumbo as we tool around in our rental car searching for our next meal. Last year, I was worried. Worried about whether she would make friends, whether she would be homesick. This year I am worried that waiting for her stored boxes might interfere with lunch.

With the image of her hometown besties gathered in her room still fresh in my mind, I hung out for a while in the dorm, enjoying the newer crop of friends. If there was a midnight serenade, I missed it, having escaped long before that to the relative quiet of my hotel room. There is nothing for me to do this morning, except wonder about breakfast.