As a treat after yesterday’s trip to the cemetery, I decide to take the kids straight from school to Darling Harbour to go paddle-boating.
The rental hut is easy to find, and after a short wait, a girl around my age whose name tag says MEGGIE hands us three life preservers and points us toward a row of colorful plastic boats.
“Righto, then, have yourselves a go.”
The American in me, conditioned by a thousand TV ads for personal injury lawyers, wants paperwork to sign, a deposit, critical instructions about where not to go. “Go on now,” carefree Meggie says to us.
“Ta,” I say, and the kids look at me like I’m a total sham. “What? Can’t I say ta? Ta, luv! Ta, darling! Good on ya. No worries, mates.”
“That’s not how we talk!” Milly shouts.
“Ah, my little sheila, that’s a bit dodgy, now, isn’t it?”
“You sound like a pirate!” she says, squinting at me.
“Arrr—”
Martin runs to the boats. “Let’s do this one!”
“I’m going in the back,” Milly says, carefully climbing on.
Martin’s next to me, a yellow life vest hanging loosely off his shoulders.
This is the kind of mother I’m going to be. The kind who gets up and goes, does funny voices, who lives a tourist’s life in her hometown, sifting through the paper looking for outings and activities, festivals and nature walks and community potlucks, inspiring her children with her endlessly redoubling energy!
I pedal madly, propelling us by inches. Martin slides forward to help but his feet barely touch the pedals. I sit up straighter to get some leverage. We ride awhile in silence, picking up a nice current. The harbor is huge in front of us. I hope they’ll remember this. I should’ve brought my camera.
After a while, Milly asks, “When do we turn back?”
“Never!” I reprise my pirate voice.
As we get farther out, the water gets choppier. My thighs are burning, but I don’t mind, because this is what I’m here to do: wake them up, thrill them, snap them back into their childhoods.
“This is far!” Martin says, glancing back at the dock, which is small now.
I squeeze his knee. “Not far enough! We’re going to the ends of the earth, laddie!” I paddle faster and harder. Little waves splash in around our feet.
“When do we go back?” Milly asks.
“We have loads of time!” I paddle on. “We have the boat for an hour. Look out there—see those guys!” I point to a family way out in front of us.
“That’s really far,” Martin says.
There’s a moment of quiet.
“Should we sing a sailing song?” I suggest.
No response.
“Come on, mates, sing something for me to paddle to.”
“I want to go back!” Milly shouts. I turn. She has the fire of the betrayed in her eyes. “I want to go home! Now!”
“Oh, honey, we can turn around. Watch this. I can turn us right around, and we can go back.” She is not satisfied. She starts to cry. “Look, there’s the docking area. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She cries louder, her usual stoicism falling off like a costume that never really fit.
“We’ll get there! Look how fast I’m going,” I say desperately. “As fast as I can paddle.” She cries bigger still, bigger than she is, as big as machine-gun blasts.
“I can paddle, too!” Martin says, wanting to help.
As I light my thighs on fire paddling us to shore, I think, Thank God her mother can’t see this. It’d be torture to watch someone mistake your daughter’s autonomy routine for actual fearlessness.
That night at bedtime, Martin begs me to read him a section from Milly’s Seven Wonders book. “Please, just a little?”
I slip into bed next to him and start reading about the Pyramids in a quiet monotone, so Milly will know I remember that the book has bad associations for her. “ ‘The Pyramids were made by thousands of slaves.’ ”
“What are slaves?”
“Um, people who work but don’t get paid. People who have to do whatever the boss tells them to do. They have no choice.”
“Like you,” Martin says.
“No,” I laugh. “I get paid, and I have a choice. I can say no. I can quit.”
“You get paid?”
“Of course she does!” Milly calls out from her bed around the corner.
“I do.”
“Who pays for you?”
“Daddy does,” Milly answers.
“Your dad pays me to help out, to clean up, to drive—”
“You can quit?” Martin asks.
“I can. I could. If I needed to. If things were unfair or something.”
“Is this fair?” he asks, referring to all of it, I suppose.
“For her!” Milly chimes in.
“Everything’s going great.” He checks my expression for signs of deceit. “We’re good, I promise.” With the matter more or less resolved, he turns back around. I squeeze him, wondering when to remind him that, fair or no, even if I wouldn’t mind staying a little longer, I still have to leave in early July.
As we move into the “Statue of Zeus” section, Milly sighs like a librarian who’s told us to hush once already.
“ ‘Zeus—,’ ” I start.
Milly throws off her comforter, and for a moment I think she’s going to storm out of the room and peel around the house, looking for someone to petition. Daddy! Pop! Ev! They’re reading the stupid boy book and I can’t sleep! But her father is working an overnight flight, her grandfather is too old to be awake after 7:30 P.M., and her half brother is at the supermarket.
Martin elbows me to keep going.
“One sec, bud.”
Milly comes around to Martin’s bed, her ponytail almost shot, her hair falling around her face the way it does, implying her future self.
“Hi,” I say, projecting nonchalance.
She stands at the side of the bed, her eyes on an illustration of Zeus. “When is Daddy coming home?”
“Not until tomorrow.” I lift the blanket. “Wanna get in? I was just going to read one more section—” She looks around, biting her lip. She stares at us, hating her lack of options.
“Fine,” she says, and wriggles between my legs, tobogganstyle. I’m barely breathing as she rests her head on my chest. “Go,” she says.
“ ‘Artemis was the daughter of Zeus,’ ” I read, stunned, gratified. “ ‘Artemis assisted her mother in the birth of her little brother.’ ”
“That’s revolting,” Milly says, making me laugh by choosing the most regal adjective available. “I felt that!” she says. “I felt your laugh.” She scrunches down so her head is lower on my stomach, her arms resting on my thighs like I’m a chaise longue.
I take a drink of water.
“Whoa. I heard that. I heard your swallow.”
“Me next!” Martin squeals.
Milly turns her head around and looks up at me seriously. “You know the one thing you don’t have in common with the emu?”
“The one thing? What is the one thing I do not have in common with the emu?”
“Your Adam’s apple doesn’t stick out.”
“Right,” I say. “Because I’m a girl. Only boys have Adam’s apples.”
“And snakes. Snakes have Adam’s apples. I’ve seen pictures. They have a big bump right here.” Milly touches her throat.
“I don’t think that’s an Adam’s apple. Adam’s apples have something to do with your voice and your vocal cords, and, you know, snakes don’t talk. That big bump is probably a rat or a mouse—”
“Eww,” they both say.
“Eww is right. They swallow stuff whole.”
“Why don’t snakes chew?”
“They don’t have enough teeth?” I venture. “I’m not sure. I don’t know a lot about snakes. Maybe Evan knows—”
“He has a massive Adam’s apple,” Martin announces, his emphasis on massive making “Adam’s apple” seem like a euphemism.
“Oh, really?” I ask, chuckling.
“I felt you laugh,” Milly says. “Do it again.”
“Make me laugh again.”
“How?”
“Tell me more about Evan’s massive Adam’s apple.”
I don’t know what happened tonight. I don’t know if Milly regrets falling apart on the paddleboat or if this break-and-mend routine is the best she can do, but she came over to Martin’s bed. She let me hold her. I can still feel her weight against my chest, and it makes me impatient to be a mother.