helped me understand who I was and that I could be loved, an essential fact I hadn’t learned from my own parents, who were too burdened with grief to attend to my emotional development. When we lived together in the dorms, Margot somehow knew when I needed to be alone and when to insist that I join everyone for an excursion to the movies to see Tom Cruise in Cocktail. She knew when to plant raspberry Pop Tarts in my desk drawer for me to discover the night before my much-feared chemistry exam. At a time when I was formulating who I was, Margot quietly proved my lovability, something that had previously eluded me due to the sorrowful emotional distance of my parents. At home, my parents and I were like hotel guests, polite neighbors who didn’t really know each other. In contrast, Margot and my other Egan friends were strangers who unhesitatingly took me in, like I was an ill wanderer needing nourishment and convalescence and the ministry of others.
Given my lack of siblings, friends had always taken on an extreme importance to me. And because of that, if a friend violated or disappointed me, they were cut off. One strike, you’re out. Hearing stories of friends that I’d sliced out of my life with the precision of a surgeon, Jesse sometimes jokingly referred to me as Hard-Hearted Hillary. But it was precisely because I’d go to extremes not to disappoint close friends that I became so profoundly hurt whenever they disappointed me, when they did things I found unthinkable, things that were against my constitution to do. The college roommate who declared to others in hushed tones that my then boyfriend was “kind of a loser.” My best elementary school friend who teased me for riding bikes after school with my next-door neighbor, who happened to have Down’s Syndrome. One false move and those once-friends were dead to me. I wasn’t mean, I didn’t retaliate, I just disappeared. I purged.
In addition to helping nurture my sense of self, Margot also brought me Jean, who was slotted into a friend tier all her own. But to label Jean a friend was to diminish how she made me feel — worthy and lovable. She was a mother figure who never tried to mother me, but instead gently and non-judgmentally cared for me even when I’d made horrible mistakes. That I thirsted for such belonging was a comment on the depths of my parents’ remoteness. That as a teenager I finally found belonging in Margot and Jean was the reason I was about to take my adult life in a wholly unthinkable direction.
CHAPTER SIX
“Lemme guess,” the cab driver said in a jarring tone that bordered on disdain. “You’re from New York.”
The San Francisco Peninsula fog whipped around me, tossing my curls this way and that. A rope-like section wrapped across my face like a mustache and prevented me from responding. Speckles of mist and dew covered me and the baby. When we spoke briefly that morning, Jesse had offered to pick me — us — up from the airport. But I assured him that a cab would be fine. I didn’t want to start these next few days with him thinking that he’d be expected to help. This was my burden, my mess.
“Here in San Francisco,” the cab driver continued, hands on his hips, jutting his chin towards the car seat resting on the curb. “We follow the rules.”
“I’m from San Francisco. I’m just arriving back from a trip.”
“Great. So where’s the car seat base? I’m not like those New York cabbies. The ones who let people buckle their babies on their laps. That’s no better than a human air bag!”
“I —”
“You’ve. Got. To. Install. The. Car. Seat. Properly.”
The poor baby had been in that car seat for nearly the last six straight hours. I’d taken her out just once on the plane to change a diaper. I wasn’t even sure that she needed it but I decided I’d better preempt a need. Plus, the woman who sat next to me seemed like a mom herself so I figured I’d have a built-in helper whether she wanted to
Given my lack of siblings, friends had always taken on an extreme importance to me. And because of that, if a friend violated or disappointed me, they were cut off. One strike, you’re out. Hearing stories of friends that I’d sliced out of my life with the precision of a surgeon, Jesse sometimes jokingly referred to me as Hard-Hearted Hillary. But it was precisely because I’d go to extremes not to disappoint close friends that I became so profoundly hurt whenever they disappointed me, when they did things I found unthinkable, things that were against my constitution to do. The college roommate who declared to others in hushed tones that my then boyfriend was “kind of a loser.” My best elementary school friend who teased me for riding bikes after school with my next-door neighbor, who happened to have Down’s Syndrome. One false move and those once-friends were dead to me. I wasn’t mean, I didn’t retaliate, I just disappeared. I purged.
In addition to helping nurture my sense of self, Margot also brought me Jean, who was slotted into a friend tier all her own. But to label Jean a friend was to diminish how she made me feel — worthy and lovable. She was a mother figure who never tried to mother me, but instead gently and non-judgmentally cared for me even when I’d made horrible mistakes. That I thirsted for such belonging was a comment on the depths of my parents’ remoteness. That as a teenager I finally found belonging in Margot and Jean was the reason I was about to take my adult life in a wholly unthinkable direction.
CHAPTER SIX
“Lemme guess,” the cab driver said in a jarring tone that bordered on disdain. “You’re from New York.”
The San Francisco Peninsula fog whipped around me, tossing my curls this way and that. A rope-like section wrapped across my face like a mustache and prevented me from responding. Speckles of mist and dew covered me and the baby. When we spoke briefly that morning, Jesse had offered to pick me — us — up from the airport. But I assured him that a cab would be fine. I didn’t want to start these next few days with him thinking that he’d be expected to help. This was my burden, my mess.
“Here in San Francisco,” the cab driver continued, hands on his hips, jutting his chin towards the car seat resting on the curb. “We follow the rules.”
“I’m from San Francisco. I’m just arriving back from a trip.”
“Great. So where’s the car seat base? I’m not like those New York cabbies. The ones who let people buckle their babies on their laps. That’s no better than a human air bag!”
“I —”
“You’ve. Got. To. Install. The. Car. Seat. Properly.”
The poor baby had been in that car seat for nearly the last six straight hours. I’d taken her out just once on the plane to change a diaper. I wasn’t even sure that she needed it but I decided I’d better preempt a need. Plus, the woman who sat next to me seemed like a mom herself so I figured I’d have a built-in helper whether she wanted to
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