Page 48 of The Someday Daughter
Camilla’s already there when we arrive, three minutes past ten. I’m expecting a few people clutching copies ofLetters to My Someday Daughter, but this “little group” turns out to be twenty women sitting on the wood floor with their legs crossed. The Bard on the Barge is a converted houseboat, connected to the lakeshore by a floating dock with rope railings that make me think, against my will, of the tree house ladder.
It’s small and swaying, every wall lined in books behind horizontal dowels to keep them from falling off with the movement of the water. There are porthole windows and a few anchors hanging from the ceiling, like we’re on an ocean liner instead of a landlocked lake small enough to see both sides from anywhere you’re standing.
My mother cuts across the room to us, and I watch a few of the women track her. When their eyes catch on me, they smile.
“Good morning,” Camilla says, dropping a hand on my shoulderand then letting it fall to her side. She looks between Sadie and me. “How was the visit yesterday?”
I glance at Sadie, suddenly terrified that she’s going to bring it up. My used copy of the book, the notes she’s been taking in her own copy, how nasty I was about it.
But she just says, “Great. Audrey charmed the pants off Dr. Sun, as always.”
Camilla smiles. “What’s the best thing you learned?”
I study her, consider her phrasing. Thebestthing. For me, the best would be the most useful—something tangible I can put into practice. For my mother...
“Dr. Sun delivered the Broncos’ quarterback’s baby.”
Her eyebrows lift, eyes widening a bit. “How fascinating. Was it an easy birth?”
“I... have no idea,” I say. “We didn’t get into it.”
“Was yours?” Sadie asks, and we both turn to her. Her face is neutral, pleasant. But I’m thinking of her eyes in Dr. Sun’s office, how they didn’t move from that photo on the wall—a new mother in a hospital bed, her baby sleeping beside her.
Camilla hesitates. “With Audrey?” I think,Who else?
Sadie’s eyes flick to mine, and she hesitates herself before saying, “Yes, with Audrey.”
“Not particularly,” my mother laughs, pressing a hand to her stomach. I know I was weeks early, that she lost enough blood to stay in the hospital for a few days. That my dad was the one to hold me in all those first hours, to give me somewhere warm and close to meet the world.
“Oh.” Camilla looks across the room, where Magnolia is giving her a signal. “Looks like it’s time to get started.” She flashesa little smile before turning from us, picking her way between all those women sitting on the floor.
She lowers herself onto some kind of bejeweled pillow at the front of the group, crossing her legs.
“I always find it hard to get into a state of mindful presencementally,” she begins, “without first getting therephysically. If you’ll all indulge me, let’s close our eyes together and breathe into our bodies.” Everyone closes their eyes when she does, but I keep mine open. Sadie’s next to me, the two of us leaned against a community board full of flyers for dog walking and music lessons and summer tutoring. I glance at her, and her eyes are open, too.
“Identify a feeling,” Camilla tells the group. “Any single one, whatever’s bubbling up for you. None of them right or wrong. That’s the thing about feelings—they don’t come with value judgments, they justare. A feeling cannot be wrong, it can only be. Honor the feeling you’re identifying right this moment.”
And—okay. It’s froofy, right? This is therapy soup. This is the hot, intangible, emotional roil that pushed me into the sciences. That has me reaching two-handed for the factual at literally all times. But standing here, the room full of books and quiet and only Camilla’s soft voice, I kind of believe it for a second.
Or maybe it’s that Iwantto believe it. Because all the feelings I’ve been having lately—the panic that pushed me into Lake Michigan after Puddles, the hurt of Ethan acting like he doesn’t understand me anymore, whatever it is that consumes me any time Silas is around—I hate them. I’ve been absolutely roasting alive in how much I hate the feelings tornado my brain has turned into this summer. I’ve been desperate for the Audrey I knew even a month ago, so sure of all of it—how I feel, who I am, where I’m going.
But here’s my mother, saying any feeling is okay. Telling me to honor that mess. Andgod, isn’t that tempting? Wouldn’t it be so good to move through the world that way, without policing yourself? Standing there on that swaying book boat I feel it for the very first time: a modicum of understanding. Why all these women love her so much.
“Now,” Camilla says, “let’s breathe one layer deeper. Fill your lungs, and as you inhale try to identify the voice of that feeling. What is she saying to you?” She pauses. Giving everyone time to find the voice, apparently. “If it’s kind, thank her. Thank that voice for bringing you here today, to this space we’re creating together. If it’s unkind, offer her sympathy.” She inhales. “She didn’t choose unkindness; something taught it to her.”
When Sadie looks over at me, I realize my eyes are stinging. I duck my chin, blinking the tears back into my brain. What thehellis happening right now? As my mother keeps talking, I turn to face the community board so I don’t have to look at her, or at Sadie, or at anything else.
“Ask the voice how she might change if she were speaking to someone she loves,” Camilla says.
My gaze is burning a hole in the community board, laser-beaming a tutoring flyer. It’s some hand-drawn, mass-copied thing, shoutingCoding Tutoring!!with two fat exclamation points.
“If, for example, that unkind voice was giving the same message to a young girl—to your own daughter—would she rephrase it? Would she deliver it with more grace, more love?”
Middle/high school students, the flyer says.Caltech student home for the summer. [email protected] for details.I mouth the words to myself, try not to hear what Camilla’s saying.
“And if she would, tell the voice: I am deserving of all that same grace and love.”
Sadie shakes her head, movement in my peripheral vision. When I look at her, she leans into me and whispers, “She’s kind of amazing, huh?”
