BY MID-AFTERNOON, I'M antsy with boredom. I used to have an endless stream of panic-inducing CEO emails to keep me occupied on a weekend, but now it's just me and my over-active, fight-or-flight trained brain. Hippie Harry would advise me to use this quiet time to engage in reflection and self-care. He insists that it's good for the soul to simply 'sit in the nothingness' and enjoy the mental space.
What my therapist doesn't understand is that my mental space is way too... space-y for enjoyment. Sitting in it starts to feel like sitting in an airport lounge waiting to find out when your cancelled flight might get rebooked.
Still, I decide to take a stab at it for his benefit. I lie down on our bedroom floor and observe my breath. Quickly getting bored of that, I switch focus and instead observe the ceiling. The spiderweb in the corner. The ominous darkening that might indicate a roof leak. Then — calamity! — a crack in the plaster. On one hand, a sign of nothing more sinister than the need for a new coat of paint but on the other, (and the worse case always being the more likely in my brain's uninformed opinion) an early warning sign of subsidence and a clear indication that our house is going to collapse around us. My mind greedily imagines the imminent catastrophe: a loud, earth-shattering rumble as our second floor slides off the first, bricks and plaster raining down, children and husband barely making it out alive, while I lie trapped and helpless under what remains of our roof.
With a surge of adrenaline, I scramble up off the floor and clap the dust and dog hair off my clothing.
As soon as I'm vertical, I recognize my panic for what it is: fake news. Just my bored brain's way of giving me something to worry about. The house isn't going to collapse, at least not imminently.
I just need something to do.
I can hear last night's hockey game recap booming at top volume out of the den where Vic has the big screen permanently set to TSN and decide not to bother him with my cataclysmic fantasies right now. Sports fanatics consider a recap of a game they've already watched as holy as the game itself, so I know better than to try to make any conversation with him until that's over.
Tim has unsequestered himself from the bathroom, only to re-sequester himself in his bedroom where I can only presume he's building and blowing shit up with his Minecraft friends.
That leaves Maeve. Maybe this would be a good time to try to ferret the truth out of her. Mother-Daughter time. Womano-a-womano. And I believe I know just how to do it.
I find her lying upside down on her childhood bed, glumly flicking her phone screen.
"Doom scrolling?" I ask from the open doorway, not daring to enter without permission despite the fact that I'd been using this room as my home office less than a week ago. My recent occupation is evidenced by the stacks of invoices and receipt bundles that are spilling from the desk onto the carpet. I am not a naturally ordered person.
She tilts her head so I can see her face and says stonily, "No."
Well, that clears that up. Excellent inroads being made here already, I think. Just 40 more metres of teenaged permafrost to blast through with the fire of my motherly charm. Nearly there.
"Okaaaay," I said, breaching the doorframe and making like I'm just here to pick up some of my paperwork. "Just needed this--" my hand scrambles around the desk, grabbing the first thing it can make sense of, "--pack of post its."
"Mkay," she says dismissively, thumb still scrolling, face still sour.
"So, hey, I was thinking...." I peer over her arm and see that she's on some girl's Instagram. Picture after picture of the same girl. Partying, kissing a guy with one eye on the camera, flashing the peace sign (why do they all do that?), making duck lips at the camera (and that?). I note that she wears a Queen's University jacket. A school friend, then? "She's pretty," I say, hoping to create some tiny connection with my brick wall of a daughter.
Maeve realizes I'm looking at her screen and flips the phone onto her chest, blocking me out.
"A friend of yours?"
A shadow crosses my daughter's face. She's not going to tell me, but I know my kid.
"Not a friend then." I surmise.
Maeve responds by exhaling loudly as if I couldn't possibly understand insta-stalking a former friend who hasn't spoken to you since you accidentally gave her lice and accused her girlfriend of trying to steal your husband. I'm thinking, of course, of my former best friend Vivian who I haven't seen in close to 5 years thanks to... well. The nits. And my nit-wittedness.
"What did you want, Mum? Don't say post-its."
"I wondered if you'd want to go for pedicures. My treat." I wait nervously to be batted back verbally, but she surprises me.
"Yeah, okay. That'd be great."
And we're off!
THE 'TRENDY GIRL NAIL Salon' doesn't necessarily live up to its name, but that's what I like about it. As far as I can tell, they haven't painted in the decade they've been open, the wall posters still feature the 2012 OPI colour range, and they stubbornly refuse to take credit, mercilessly sending cashless customers out to the bank machine across the road before agreeing to do their nails.
I like the straightforward simplicity of a place like this. You know what you're getting—namely, a top-quality pedicure and no-holds-barred honesty about the state of your eyebrows. You have to appreciate the candour.
The door chimes jingle as Maeve and I step in, stomping to get some of the surprise winter slush off our boots.
"Lady!" says Sammie, my usual technician, in greeting. She calls everyone Lady but somehow, I still feel like she recognizes and cares about me as an individual. "You brought your daughter! Good, good. Two chairs just opened up. Go pick a colour."
At the wall of little bottles, Maeve promptly selects black. I hem and haw over two nearly identical versions of clear until Maeve gets audibly impatient with me. She hands me a fire engine red and says, "Old people get clear. Live a little."
I accept the garish colour and motion toward the empty chairs. Doesn't hurt to show willing if I hope to crack any intel out of her.
Once we're seated, pant legs rolled up to our knees, water tumbling around our ankles, and massage chairs kneading our spines painfully, I make my first overture. I should probably wait, give her more time to loosen up, but I lack discipline.
"Why did you leave school?" I ask, point-blank.
She sighs.
"I knew it. This wasn't about spending time together. It's about you needing to know EVERYthing."
I try to look offended, but she's got me dead to rights. That was entirely my plan. Get her barefoot and vulnerable, then demand to know why she's throwing away her dreams, education and at least thirty thousand of our hard-earned dollars.
I throw my hands out, nearly knocking over the sterilized tray of instruments that Sammie has laid out within arms reach.
Sammie doesn't look up from the tiny scalpel she's using to razor my heel, but she murmurs, "Careful, Lady."
"Look," I offer. "You don't have to tell me EVERYthing. But at least tell me something because I'm worried. It isn't like you. You were so excited to be at university. You are the most ambitious person I've ever met. You're a future CEO, for god sake. I need to understand why you're here and not there getting ready to take exams. Is it ... drugs? A man? Are you... in trouble?"
At this, she rolls her eyes so loud even Sammie looks up with respect.
"Stop, mum. I beg you. You wouldn't understand."
"Try me! I bet I would. I'm more worldly than you give me credit for."
I try not to notice that Maeve's nail technician, who is hardly more than a teen herself, suppresses a doubtful smile at that.
"I am!" I say in my own defence. Then, exasperated, "You know, every generation of daughters thinks their mother is completely clueless. Like she lived in a wax museum, everything perfect, simple, just so. But, you know, the wax museum is for your benefit. It's not real. Mothers are people too. We have lives. Experiences. We make mistakes. We know about things."
"You don't know about this."
"I might."
"You don't."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're happy."
I'm offended by this. "Well, I wasn't always. And I'm not so sure happy is all it's cracked up to be anyway."
This stops her.
"You're not happy being happy?"
My turn to shrug.
"Sometimes, but then I get freaked out. Like, if I'm too happy, some higher power will smite me."
"Smite you?"
"Sure. Smite. That's a thing."
She goes quiet again. I feel the two nail technicians (and everyone in listening distance) waiting for Maeve's response. They've been hanging on every tense word, and now they're as frustrated as I am.
Ruthlessly, Maeve makes us all wait. She sits silently through the scraping, the filing, the tickly scrubbing, the cream massaging and the hot towel before she finally speaks. When she does, I can't tell if it's the truth or just a sliver of the truth. But at least it's something to go on.
"Have you ever felt like all your choices were wrong? Like, you thought you wanted one thing, but then you got it, and it turned out it was just a thing like all the other things and not what you wanted it to be at all? Do you ever just look around and think, is this all there is? Because I thought there'd be more. More meaning, more purpose. But it turns out, we're all just cogs in a big, ugly wheel, turning, turning, turning to no end. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about?"
I turn to look at my daughter — this beautiful, smart, ambitious, almost-woman who is at least ten years too young to be having an existential crisis — and I search for something motivating to say.
In the end, I settle on the truth: "Yep."
A heavy quiet descends over us all as an entire salon-full of women ponder the meaningless of it all.
After a few minutes, Sammie breaks the pin-drop silence to ask me (loudly) if I want my upper lip waxed today.