New Friends

Sally would not let me call. I wanted to make sure everything was O.K., and I wanted Sophie to know that I--we--was thinking about her. "Good night, sweet dreams, I love you" as we always tried to say before nodding off for the night. True, I had said this in the morning, when I dropped her off at school, but after a month or two of being Mr. Mom, she is constantly on my mind. I am learning what it is like in the way single parents must, in the way most dads do not have the opportunity to be involved, totally. So I listened to Sally. The logic was simple: if she was having a hard time, she would have called us. If she wanted tdo come home, she would have told us. If something were wrong, the parents would have called to tell us. But that is just the logic. I still wanted to call.

So late on Saturday morning I called to figure out how to connect with Sophie. She and her new friends were out on the street selling goods they had baked the night before. That's what they had done at the birthday party; stay home with four or five girls and eat and cook things. How simple and old-fashioned, just staying at home! What fun! They did not fly to Palm Beach on a chartered 737. They did not go to the mall and buy things.

"So... how was it? Did you have fun?" Well it was all as plain as can be. Girl meets another girl at new school. Old girl is looking for something new, some of the kids have been mean to her; the new girl meets a receptive person who knows the ropes. They find many common interests, in piano, in horses, in the seashore and sailing. They share many classes by some coincidence. Both are very good students. They roll on the hallway floor with laughter when Sophie whacks another student on the head with a plastic water bottle while being demonstrative, swinging her arm out with an unexpected flourish. No one was hurt; it was just so unexpected. They sit together on the floor eating dorritos out of a bag in silence while the other girls have gone to sleep. The new bond makes all the difference this fall, it makes the social transition a wonderful success, out of a potential, though unlikely, disaster. When Sally and I come to pick her up, Sophie is out selling cookies and cakes. We sit down and eventually have a glass or two of wine, a sandwich and a tour of the neighborhood. We like the parents. Right now, this feels like it is going to be a nice thing, all around!