The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer Page A

everybody talks about, who had that baby named Trivet, right? I’m always sitting here, making these deadpan, supposedly nonjudgmental statements like, ‘Oh yes, Jen, it’s very interesting to me that you think blow jobs don’t count as sex. Now how did you reach that conclusion?’ ”
    “Jen? Heplauer ?” Dory asked.
    “I didn’t say that. And they confess things to me that they can barely handle. A ninth-grade girl came into my office the other day and said, ‘I am totally turned on by my best friend, and she’d die if she knew.’ Another kid said he’s been using J Juice every weekend, you know that drug? It’s all over the place. I wouldn’t want to be them for anything. I tell them I understand. That when I was in high school, there were times when I just got so lost in my own problems and couldn’t find anything peaceful to think about. When it all seemed so ugly and hateful and pointless. I tell them how my parents only wanted me to marry a nice Indian boy. At night I’d come home from being with a secret boy who my parents would never have approved of, and I’d be filled with feeling, and I’d go past the living room where they were watching TV and balancing the checkbook. And there would be these atrocities on the news, and I’d feel everything so strongly—the good and the bad—and I was overwhelmed.”
    “I’m sorry, Leanne,” Dory broke in, “but I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”
    “I worry about these kids, Dory,” Leanne said. “They are like little baby birds . But if I had a daughter like Willa, who was having her first relationship with someone like Eli, I think I’d feel that I’d done something right. I think I would feel happy.” Both women took a moment to note, tacitly, that Dory did not feel happy. “You’ve got Robby,” Leanne said, “and you’ve both figured out how to be. How to be with just one person. So let Willa have someone too, if she wants that. She’s entitled.”
    That night, Dory decided to call Fran and tell her the news. As soon as she began to talk, she could hear that her own voice sounded slightly feverish. “Are you alone?” she asked the drama teacher.
    “Of course,” Fran said. “Eli is in his room with the door closed. Story of my life.”
    “He’s probably talking to Willa. They’re probably on Farrest together. Listen, Fran,” Dory said. “I bring news from the front. Our kids seem to have developed a special thing between them.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “They’re involved.”
    “What are you talking about, Dory?”
    “They’re seeing each other. Boyfriend and girlfriend.”
    Fran was silent. “Well, I’m surprised,” she finally said. “I’ve been so busy with the new job that I feel kind of blindsided.” Both women agreed that this was definitely a new stage of life, and then they quickly said goodnight.
    Dory had always assumed that when her daughter had a boyfriend, she would confide in her about him. After all, teenagers easily told one another everything. They didn’t have to be force-fed truth serum in order to talk. Maybe a mother could be given a little information once in a while. One evening, when Dory and Willa were alone in the den and the TV was on, Dory managed to say, “I know this is awkward. But you and Eli, if this is relevant—and you don’t have to tell me if it is—I just want to say that I hope you’re protecting yourself. There’s nothing more important.”
    Their bare feet were up on the coffee table, and Dory noticed that each of Willa’s toes was painted a slightly different shade; she pictured Eli’s big hand holding a miniature brush, dipping and re-dipping in five different bottles. Willa had finished her homework for the night, and Dory had finished all her grading. Robby was already asleep in his New Deal T-shirt. It was a school night, and all of them were a little knocked out by life, but there were so few times when Dory was alone with her daughter anymore,