PART 23
Charlotte's teenage years passed with a beautiful,
triumphant ordinariness.
There were high school dances,
late-night study sessions,
arguments about messy rooms,
and the typical,
healthy friction of a child becoming an adult.
I welcomed every bit of it,
even the eye-rolls and the teenage moodiness,
because it was safe.
She didn't have to be perfect to be loved,
she didn't have to walk on eggshells to keep the peace,
she could be angry,
she could be sad,
she could be completely unreasonable,
and she knew the foundation wouldn't crack.
She knew her mother wouldn't call the police,
she knew her mother wouldn't threaten her stability,
she knew her mother would just wait for the storm to pass.
When she turned seventeen,
she received an acceptance letter from a university across the country,
a prestigious art program she had dreamed about for years.
She held the paper in her hands,
her eyes wide with an emotion I couldn't quite define,
her breath catching in her throat.
"I got in, Mom,"
she whispered,
looking up at me.
"You did,"
I said,
tears stinging my eyes as I pulled her into a tight embrace.
"You did the work, Charlotte,"
"you earned this."
As I held her,
I realized that she wasn't running away from something anymore,
she was running toward something.
When I had left my mother's house at her age,
it had been an escape,
a desperate flight from a burning building,
leaving half my spirit behind in the embers.
But Charlotte was leaving a solid structure,
carrying the warmth of her home inside her like a torch to light her own path.
She spent the summer packing boxes,
sorting through her childhood memories with a sense of excitement,
untouched by guilt or obligation.
She didn't have to worry about leaving me alone,
because she knew I was happy,
she knew David was there,
she knew our house was secure.
She was free to fly,
without checking to see if her departure would destroy the ground she left behind.
On the night before she was set to leave,
I found her sitting in her empty room,
staring out the window at the moonlit yard.
"Are you scared?"
I asked gently,
sitting on the floor beside her.
"A little,"
she admitted,
leaning her head against my shoulder.
"But it's a good kind of scared."
"Like standing at the top of a hill,"
"ready to run down."
I smiled in the darkness,
kissing her temple,
holding her close for one of the last times in this room.
"Go run down it, Charlotte,"
May you like
I whispered.
"The ground at the bottom is ready for you."
