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Thursday, March 4th, 2010
Dear Mom,
It’s been a while since I wrote, I know, but there hasn’t been much to tell. We had a late bit of frost last week. The weatherman gave us warning (the one you like to watch when you visit, Chuck something, with the round nose and the laugh) and so I got the plants all covered up. No real damage, though I forgot the rose bush out back, which disappointed Margaret.
Sarah is enjoying her second year of college. She came out of Fall semester with a 3.2, which we’re very proud of even though we’re encouraging her to kick it up to a 3.5. I know she can do it. She probably would have, in fact, except for the car accident. Her leg is out of the cast now, I don’t know if I’ve told you. I try to call, but you so seldom answer the phone. I wish you’d let us hire someone. I worry.
Cassie, meanwhile, is on track for a scholarship, if her softball coach knows anything. Coach seems to think Cassie could get a full ride at the right university. We’re thinking something small and private. Sarah is happy enough at the state school, but every time we drive through campus I can’t help worrying at how large it is, that whole sea of bodies flooding the sidewalks and streets. I think I’d feel safer with our youngest someplace smaller. I never recognize Sarah’s friends when we visit her. With that many students, everyone becomes interchangeable.
Our assassin, Jim, is still here. I haven’t told Cassie yet that we’re looking to get rid of him. Sometime soon I’ll have to sit her down and explain we found him some
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other country to live in, some place with lax firearm restrictions and an abundance of warring families to work for, a place he can be happy.
Although there might be a way to keep him nearby, close enough to visit without having him in the house, but I’ll get to that later.
To be honest, I suppose I’d used Cassie as an excuse to keep him after that first hit. She’s come out of her shell so much this last year. For a while she’d been going out with her teammates, going out on dates, out until curfew. Sometimes she even breaks curfew, if you can imagine. I punish her for it, but it’s a strange thing. I never felt proud of Sarah when she showed up at one in the morning, dropped off by some boy who didn’t bother getting out of his car. But with Cassie it’s different. I’m glad she’s staying out late. I’m glad she’s having fun. Has it always been true for parents, do you think, that we try to fold our children inside out like this? Sarah we wanted to keep home. Cassie we want to push out. I’d like to think there’s some happy medium that we’re trying to reach, some equilibrium of teen socialization to which we’re anchoring the girls, but that might be a little optimistic. Maybe the parental instinct is simply antagonistic.
Still, after the first couple of times Cassie showed up late I started to worry. We’d already hired the assassin by then, of course. Cassie’s new social life sprang up in just the last year, while we hired the assassin right before she started high school. That was the summer we paid for the roof we never got, if you remember, only to discover the roofer himself had taken our money and fled the state. Truth be told we were really looking for a collection agent, just to get our money back, but Jim had a summer sale going and, well, one thing led to another.
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