You Know How This Goes

Sari Fordham

Part I: The Secret to Parenting

In Mexico City, you discover the secret to parenting. 

It happens while your three-year-old daughter, Kai, is fluffing pillows like a Victorian monarch. You’ve already tried most of the good parenting things: reading books, singing songs, encouraging her to close her eyes and tell a story. The Airbnb’s only bed is made for giants—you have to hop slightly to get onto it—and you can’t leave her there alone. It’s 9:00 p.m. and then 10:00. Why isn’t she asleep? She opens her eyes and asks for water, sounding very, very awake. Here, you say, pushing the glass toward her, frustration clawing at your throat. It’s way past bedtime, you say as nicely as possible. Time to settle in and sleep. 

When she begins fluffing a pillow again, you take it from her hands and toss it to the floor. It's time to sleep, you hiss. You aren’t loud, but you aren’t nice either. Her silliness vanishes, replaced with keening that rattles your heart. You lay beside her, chastened and resigned. 

You cannot make someone sleep; you can only provide the environment. You realize that this truth applies to so much. Good parenting, you think, is about providing the right opportunities and then letting go. Your mind explodes: you’ve discovered the secret of parenting. You must not be attached to outcomes. You know your aphorism is cliché, yet you grasp onto it, certain that this will change everything.

Part 2: The Not-So-Good Daughter 

A week before your trip to Mexico City, your father had heart surgery. It was supposed to be an outpatient procedure, yet sensing disaster or enjoying the drama of speculation or both, he had been posting Worst Case Scenarios to Facebook—the cardiac ablation might not work, it might give him blood clots, he might have a stroke. Over the phone, you told him: don’t borrow trouble. On the morning of his surgery, your sister Sonja called. You saw her name and knew, your hello a question.

I just talked to Karen, she said. The surgeon punctured dad’s heart. They’re cracking his chest open right now to stop the bleeding. It’s bad. 

You called Karen, your stepmother, and the two of you gathered the encouraging facts. He wasn’t dead. He was in a good hospital, and a lot of people were working on him, and bright side—the surgeon could finally fix that little pouch in his heart where his blood pooled. He’s tough, you said. He’ll be signing up for a marathon before the year is out.   

Sari, he's already signed up for three, Karen said.

You both laughed. It felt good to laugh. What sat between you was the question of whether he would ever get to run those marathons. You wanted to say the easy thing, that nothing would change, but neither of you could know this. You didn't even know if he would be alive in a month, and so you said nothing more about running.

You lived across the country but didn’t go to work. Incidentally, your father would have said, you were just going to write in a coffee shop. You carried his voice like Jiminy Cricket. The voice of reason. You knew that if you were supposed to teach, you would have taught. Sonja lived in the same city as your father and went to work. This was how your father raised you: don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.

Kai built a fort out of blankets, and you researched punctured hearts. Some people died. Some people didn’t. You weren’t sure what you should do. If your father was dying, you should fly to Tennessee. If he wasn’t, you should visit later. He would hate having his daughters sitting in his hospital room, asking how he was feeling. Your presence would be as unnerving as the angel of death. You should take your scheduled vacation. The tickets were purchased, the Airbnb paid for. You reassured yourself that you are practical because your father is practical.

Kai dressed the dog and you called Bryan. She knew her Pappa was in the hospital, but for her, hospital was an abstract concept like school or fire station. They were places that existed exclusively in literature. You kept your voice neutral as you described your options again and again. Bryan listened and then said, we’ll do whatever you want. We can buy you a ticket tonight if you like.

Your mother used to say, marry a good man like your father. You married a good man like your father. Bryan’s vacation days were limited, as was your money. If you went to Tennessee, Bryan would spend his days taking Kai to the zoo and the beach, and he would shrug off any talk of Mexico. Forget Mexico.

What do you want to do? Bryan asked.

You walked around the house. You drank glass after glass of water. You called Sonja, whose colleagues, she reported, had sent her home. Should you go? Should you stay?

When your father was wheeled out of surgery, the doctors told Karen that he was doing really well, all things considered. They didn’t think he was in danger of dying.   

A good daughter would still fly to Tennessee.

Part 3: The Not-So-Good Mother

At lunch, Bryan translates the vegetarian items Kai might eat. It’s a short list. When you were pregnant, and still a parenting expert, you were determined to raise an adventurous eater, by which you meant a normal eater. Your child would be served stews, sauces, and curries from the get-go. No kid’s meal and adults’ meal nonsense. You’ve long ago packed away that intention. Kai primarily eats tofu, seaweed, and berries. She’s obsessed with lingonberries, but even in Finland—land of lingonberries—your relatives shake their heads before smiling slyly. Of course your child is picky.

As you wait for the food, Kai chases pigeons in the plaza. She’s a tiny girl with a bright laugh. Her hair is cut into a bob and her clothes are a riot of mismatched colors that somehow look cohesive. You can’t remember ever being as free from convention. Your heart catches as you watch her, surprised again at your luck. She likes dogs and books and worms and camping. When your father last visited, he sat with her on the carpet and they built LEGO for hours. 

The pigeons peck crumbs along the cobblestone, strutting and cooing, flying off a few meters as Kai approaches. You should probably discourage her from chasing them, but you’re tired of hearing yourself say no. The pigeons are fine.

And really, you chased pigeons when you were a child. You have a memory of running outside a temple in Tokyo and businessmen taking your picture. Your memory doesn’t explain why they would be carrying cameras. What you remember is the soft flutter of birds’ wings, the click-click-click of the strangers’ attention, and your feelings of self-importance. Your family lived in Kenya at the time, and you spent a week in Japan as your family hopped across the world on a visit back to the States.

You and Sonja grew so bored of sightseeing that when your family arrived in Thailand, you begged your parents to leave you in the guest room while they visited Wat Phra Kaew. Your parents had wanted you to see this sacred temple and widen your understanding of the world, and then they had let go of their desired outcome. OK, they said. Just don't fight while we're gone.

At first, you were exhilarated at the opportunity to play with your dolls without interruptions, but as one hour passed and then another, the two of you discovered something more boring than temples. You stood by the window and gazed down at people walking outside. You watched the traffic. When your parents finally returned, they were trilling about their morning, still telling stories as they took you to the cafeteria for lunch. You set a cup of yogurt and an ice cream bar on your tray and dared your mother to complain. She usually had a lot to say about eating vegetables and trying new foods. She looked at you and smiled. Her goal then, like your goal now, was calories.

You announce in a bright voice that Kai’s going to love the cheese quesadilla. When she shoves the plate away, you remind yourself that you cannot manage her feelings. You have provided the meal she’s most likely to eat. You won’t be attached to an outcome. 

You explain that this is her meal and you recommend she eat something since she won’t be eating another meal until supper. She nibbles at the quesadilla and slides around in the chair, nearly falling off one side and then the other, sneaking glances at you. There’s no law against wiggling. You dip bread into salsa and look away. Your feelings won’t feed her. You practice serenity. A man stands beside the water fountain selling balloons and plastic toys. He calls out to each passing family, maintaining a tenor of hope in his voice. When your father came out of surgery, he tried to remove his breathing tube so that he could ask what had happened. The nurses thought he was hallucinating and tied his hands to the sides of his bed.  

Kai squirms in her chair and then falls completely off, losing a shoe, which she kicks out toward the plaza. Kai, you say. Your voice is not serene.  

I’m just trying to make you laugh, she says.

You will laugh later when you step into the Palacio de Bellas Artes, and Kai tugs on your hand and tells you that she is really, really hungry. You are warming up to the topic of Well-You-Chose-Not-To-Eat-Lunch, when she melts to the floor and begins to cry. I hate art, she says. 

You and Bryan have been looking forward to this exhibit, a retrospective on Diego Rivera and Picasso, for at least two days. You exhale a gust of air that you promise yourself is not exasperation. It’s a yogi breath. You are, in fact, okay with how things are turning out. You smile at Kai. I’m sorry you’re hungry, lovey. You can eat after the museum.

And then, you and Bryan sprint through the museum like robbers after a heist, passing Kai’s unhappy body back and forth between you. You know that what you have stolen are your child’s natural consequences. When you burst out into the sunshine, you pull a granola bar from your purse. Here, you say, and smile. Was it that hard to wait? 

You have done everything the way you have planned, and yet you’re still mad at yourself. A good mother would have thought to give the granola bar before walking into the museum.

Part 4: The Good Father

You played varsity basketball in high school, and your father attended all the home games. Incidentally, he told you, everyone who tried out for the girls’ team got on. Nevertheless, your father was enthusiastic about basketball because you were enthusiastic. He was attentive as your teammates ran across the court. You sat on the bench, tapping your feet. When the coach finally said, “Okay, Fordham,” you crouched on the sidelines and waited for the ref to wave you in. Your father chanted with the crowd, Be Aggressive! B-E Aggressive! He clapped his hands to the beat. B-E A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E. Aggressive. You were both pacifists, he a pastor and you against killing even spiders. 

Tomorrow, the boys in physics class would lean forward and whisper to you about the game. You kept hoping these conversations would transition into flirting, but you didn’t launch yourself toward the ball for boys. You played for the joy of being in your own body and moving with certainty. At school, you were nice to everyone, even the friends who sometimes left you standing in the parking lot as they drove off to Taco Bell. It felt glorious to run down the court, eyes on the ball, planting yourself before your opponent and then blocking the shot, cleanly and decisively. Take that ball away. Takethatballaway. You could hear your father cheering as you looped up to the ref and retrieved the ball. You hurled it to your teammate with both hands, just as you had been taught. 

You weren't a mean player. You never tripped your opponents or shoved them in a scuffle. You didn’t mutter insults. If anyone fell, you offered a hand up. You always said, “good game” after the game, and you meant it. But your transformation on the court from meek to aggressive meant that you were a home-crowd favorite. You enjoyed the adrenaline of sprinting down the court, the hollow sound of the ball on the concrete floor, the pleasure of blocking a shot and then flipping the ball to a teammate. Each day, you came to school unsure about who you would eat lunch with. You were baffled by girl politics. You pretended not to care. You made sure your parents didn’t know what an outsider you were. You appreciated the simple rules of basketball, the clarity. The game’s parameters allowed you to be yourself. At parties, you stood with your hands at your sides, unsure what to do with them. On the basketball court, your feet and your hands were trained to go exactly where they were supposed to. You didn’t care about who won or lost. You played for the joy of playing. 

As you drove home, still on a learner’s permit, your father analyzed the game with you, celebrating how you hemmed in the competition, using the nickname Human Windmill, a holdover from when you played as a freshman and were less disciplined with your arms. He teased you unapologetically, yet never criticized your performance. He didn’t mention the baskets you missed or how you stopped taking shots early in the game. He didn’t bring up the net he had set up one Christmas, which you rarely used because it was boring to shoot hoops alone. He would mention it at other times—wasted money aggravated him—but he wouldn’t link your game performance to your laziness. As you drove home together, he focused on what you were good at—dashing down the court, keeping the score low, using your feet.  

Part 5: The Good Daughter

Your father doesn’t die. You should say this now. 

As you walk around Mexico City, you look for postcards, and at night, you write your father, describing the amazing en nogada you ate at a small vegan restaurant and the woman who tied up a poodle—which she called Princess Gigi—beside your table, and how Kai spent the rest of the day pretending to be Princess Gigi. You write that at a revered downtown restaurant, you ate huitlacoche and were surprised at how satisfyingly smoky it tasted. You write that you bought mamey at a fruit stand near Frida Kahlo’s house, and while the fruit and her house were somehow disappointing, your love for Kahlo burned on. 

At Teotihuacan, you can’t find a postcard, which feels like a minor disaster. Of all the places you’ve been, this is the one your father would most like to see, the one he would be most excited about you seeing. You, his daughter. 

Kai is cheerful. Teotihuacan is her kind of art. She runs along the Avenue of the Dead, thrilled each time a plaza appears with stairs. The Pyramids of the Sun and Moon are a mile away. You weren’t expecting such vastness. You stop again and again to take pictures. The city was once the largest in the New World, and yet archeologists aren’t sure who built it. The Aztecs, who came after, called these ruins the “birthplace of the gods.” 

You take pictures of a prickly pear cactus rising beside what might have been a residential wall. The cactus is ancient looking, tall and wrinkled. You imagine a woman standing so many years ago and looking at what you’re looking at. Incidentally, your father might say, that cactus is younger than you are. You know better than to romanticize the past; you have a degree in history and have studied the rise and fall of civilizations. Yet it’s the ordinary people and their inner lives that interest you. All those stories blown away by time, just as yours one day will be.  

When you climb the Pyramid of the Moon, you’re terrified. The steps are steep and wide and though you have a modern handrail to hang on to, you feel like a bug about to be flung off. A woman climbs down, also clinging to the railing, and as she nears, you grimace at each other in sympathy and mutual terror and you negotiate a passing. Bryan and Kai watch your slow progress from above and Kai begins to cry. Your fear is that palpable. You hear Bryan say, Mommy’s fine. Poor kid, you think. Your parenting secret doesn’t cover this scenario. Though, of course, you’ve watched enough movies to know that a good mother will model grit. That’s not why you continue. Each step is for yourself, which is itself a cliché. 

All your life, you've strived to be good. In high school, you were too sincere to be good at the ever-evolving friendships and alliances. You were goody-two-shoes good. The kind of good that even your Nana rolled her eyes at. When a perfume salesman sat down on the beach beside you in Florida—you wearing a bikini and gleaming with baby oil—and invited you to a midnight beach party, you said, you would see. You were spending the summer with your Nana and you told her about the party so that she could forbid your attendance. Instead, she said you should go. But Nana, you said, I think he’s trying to lure me there alone. She shot you a look. Exactly. 

You’re good at teaching now and taking pictures and baking bread. You’re a good letter writer. You’re good at running, or at least, you’re good enough. But being a mother? You agonize over your abilities. Not the general, keep-your-kid-alive type of things, but the sort of parenting that will help your daughter grow into a kind, resilient, confident person. You hope that the secret to parenting will translate into good parenting, into a parent who is more relaxed, less focused, ironically, on being good.  At the top of the pyramid, other travelers sit, dangling their legs over the side. Kai clings to your neck, relieved. You take some pictures. You go down. Slowly, slowly, slowly.

When you’re back in Mexico City, you have chile relleno with mango sauce for an early dinner, while Bryan eats chicken with mole. Your meal is delicious, but nothing is better than watching Kai tuck into spaghetti. You can celebrate an outcome, you decide, as long as you’re not attached to it. 

When Kai is asleep, another victory, you flip through the postcards you have bought earlier in the trip. You write your father yet another version of, I’m glad you’re alive. I am sorry I’m on vacation while you’re in the hospital.

Part 6: Your Father's Secret

For years, your father held his own parenting secret, not an abstract philosophy, but an actual secret that he had been longing to tell someone, anyone, but especially you. He finally revealed it at your mother’s funeral. It involved, of course, a marathon. 

He began running them in the 1990s, when they were still an oddity. He ran marathons and then Oprah started running them and then Sonja started running them. Oprah probably decided independently, your father liked to point out. You and your mother didn’t approve of your father’s running. You’re so skinny, Dad, you said. You need to eat more. Is all this running really good for you? He ignored you—no, he goaded you. Each time he registered for a race, he asked if you wanted to sign up, too. 

Oh, no, you told him, I play basketball. Unable to help yourself, you added that basketball was probably harder than marathoning. In basketball, you had to move your body in unexpected ways. Hmm, he said, clearly disagreeing, clearly enjoying how annoyed you were. You should run a half-marathon. It would apparently be very easy. 

When you were in college, he called and asked if you wanted to run the Atlanta Half-Marathon. You heard yourself, a little bored, saying no.

Your mother’s running, he said. You snorted. No, really, he said. 

Your mother’s cousin Piia and her husband Jukka would be visiting from Finland, and according to your father, they all thought it would be amusing to participate in the Atlanta Half-Marathon. Really? you said. Your mother was a petite woman who called the one-mile loop through the neighborhood a power walk. 

Oh, she’ll mostly walk, your father said, as if that explained everything. Are you sure you don’t want to register? You’ll be the only one not running.

Okay, you said, I’ll run. And you did. 

It would be your slowest half-marathon. Slowest means there were others, enough to fill a drawer with medals. You ran while you were pregnant, and again—your fastest—after Kai was born. You ran only halves. Let the record show: your father only half won. 

You would look back on your first race surprised that you ran another. When the starting pistol sounded, you waved to Piia, Jukka, and your mother and sprinted away. At first, it was easier than basketball, but a race is relentless, with no space to catch your breath. Your side ached. Your knees hurt. For thirteen miles, you ran and walked. You were repeatedly passed by an older man with a limp. 

You waited for your father at the finish line and then the two of you waited for your mother and her cousins. You wondered aloud what had gone wrong. Your father was upbeat. They’ll be here, he said. And he was right, as he so often, and annoyingly, was. The three of them strolled along, only their bibs identifying them as racers. Your mother carried a tote with some snacks and a book purchased from a downtown shop. An announcer identified them as the final racers in the half-marathon. People applauded. The group stopped before the finish line. Jukka gestured for the women to go first, but your mother waved him off. She wanted the distinction of being last. People clapped again, and she smiled her bird smile and waved. 

A few years later, your mother died. It had nothing to do with running. Just bad luck. While you reminisced at her funeral, still surprised that she had completed a half-marathon, your father laughed. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, he said, but you can’t get too mad now. I called Piia and Jukka and told them that Kaarina was running the half-marathon and did they want to run it, too? They were quite surprised, but said yes. Then, I told your mother that her cousins were running in the half-marathon and did she want to keep them company? She was quite surprised, but said yes. And then, I called you. 

He had been dying to tell you, his know-it-all daughter, how he had tricked you and gotten the outcome he wanted. 

Part 7: The Only Truth That Matters in an Earthquake

You and Bryan are sentries on each side of the bed, Kai—blessedly—asleep between you. Not that you’re attached to outcomes, of course. Tomorrow is your last day in Mexico City and your father is doing better, or at least he isn’t worse. You’re relaxed and occupied with finding one last thing to do. When a siren blares, your subconscious taps against your conscious self: that sound means something. There’s going to be an earthquake, you blurt out, pleased to locate the relevant fact. The building starts to sway, and you feel the satisfaction of being right. You live in California; you’re used to earthquakes. 

The neighborhood dogs begin barking. You’ve admired them all week, watching them the way others watch birds. You’ve seen an Airedale terrier, several beagles, an Italian greyhound, a Maltese, and even an Afghan hound. You’ve never seen an Afghan hound in real life before. The owner of the Airbnb has two Great Danes, which has impressed Kai immensely. Now all the dogs are sounding the alarm: Danger! Danger! Danger! You’ve never heard so much barking.  

The walls tilt one way and then the other. You wait for the earthquake to end and when it doesn’t, you mention the obvious, this is a really long quake. You remind yourself that the building is designed to move with the earth. The give is for safety. You look at Bryan across your sleeping daughter. The room is like a berth in a ship.  

A power line explodes outside. Then another. The dogs bark louder. You say to Bryan, we’re going to be okay, right? His expression shifts to uncertainty, and he picks up Kai, who doesn’t wake, and walks with her into the living room. You’re on the fourth floor and you wonder if you should take the stairs down. At least you would be doing something. Instead, you stand in a door frame, your mind a raw nerve.

It wasn’t so long ago that you discovered the secret to parenting. How flimsy and false it feels now. You wonder if your child will die tonight, and you think about the mothers—including your own—with time enough to see death coming. How lonely they must be in those final minutes. How startled and sad. Later you’ll consider that underneath every secret of parenting is the truth that when it most matters, you cannot control your child’s environment. 

You cannot ensure your child has friends in high school or prevent the untimely death of a parent. You cannot keep the plane in the air or hold back a civil war or stop an earthquake or tsunami. You cannot summon the rains or make them stop. We tell ourselves good parents do this or that, but we don’t talk enough about the capriciousness in life or how all the ordinary opportunities are a mixture of free will and luck, with luck more than half of it.  

The power is out when the ground finally stops moving. A couple streets over, electrical lines are still popping, and everywhere, the dogs are still barking, though with less urgency. Bryan puts Kai into bed—she has not woken—and the two of you sit on the couch and listen to a helicopter overhead. Probably you did everything wrong, and yet here you sit, luckier than you expected. You cannot bear to think about what tomorrow’s news will hold.

Part 8: What Your Father Knows

Because the earthquake delays mail services, your father doesn’t receive your postcards for months. When they finally start to arrive, he will call you, surprised. It sounds like you had a good trip, he says. There is a pause as you try to line up your words, the question of a bad daughter wanting a dispensation. Should I have gone? you ask. He is confused by the question and you explain that you flew to Mexico City after his heart was punctured. Sari, he says, why wouldn’t you go? Of course you went. I would have hated having you sit in the hospital.  

He is more tired these days. He asks his doctors why and they tell him that he’s just older, that his heart is in good shape, all things considered. They’re surprised he still expects to be running. You’re surprised that he has stopped signing up for marathons and even half-marathons. Kai calls him now on FaceTime. He and Karen put down whatever they’re doing and sit on the couch side by side. They admire her stuffed unicorns, her new dress, her latest drawing, a worksheet from school. Whatever she shows them, they enthuse over, even if they can’t see it because she’s bouncing your phone around. As you wash the dishes or pick up toys, you listen to their conversations and smile. Maybe you have been making parenting both too simple and too complex. Here is what you know: your father has always shown up for you. 

When you were in high school, he was amused at how seriously you took yourself, and he teased you in ways that made you howl, but under your layers of teenage grievance and feelings of inadequacies, you knew how much he enjoyed spending time with you. All along, your father has been modeling the secret to parenthood. You didn't notice because it looked as if he was having so much fun.  

When you announced that you had tried out for the basketball team, he didn't tell you the game was a waste of time. You only learned he once felt this way after he had transformed into basketball's most devoted fan. He expanded his interests to include softball and soccer, as your nephews discovered sports. He became a vegan with your sister. A flexible vegan, he said, while eating cake at your house. When you bought your first home and began composting, he started composting, too, and in those hard early days of motherhood, as you felt you were doing everything wrong, he would call you for advice about his compost pile and then thank you for your expertise. And then, there was running, his passion. Of course, he hoped to share it with you.

Kai hands you the phone and wanders off. You look down and see that your father is still there, waiting in case she returns. You ask him how he's feeling, and then you talk about the mundane details of your days. He has been pulling up poison ivy and you are behind in grading. You commiserate with each other. He tells you that it’s hard to be a parent and to work full time and he asks if Kai is any better at getting to sleep. You laugh. She isn't, you say. He doesn't give you advice and you're grateful. When you hang up, you think about your father’s optimistic face and you realize that he wasn’t waiting for Kai to return, he was hoping to speak with you.

To be a parent is to be present, you think. Everything else is style.

Sari Fordham’s writing has appeared in Brevity, Baltimore Review, Booth, Green Mountains Review, and Passages North, among others. Her memoir, Wait for God to Notice, narrates her childhood in Uganda during and after the dictatorship of Idi Amin. She teaches creative nonfiction at SUNY Oswego and lives in upstate New York with her husband and daughter. She can be found at www.sarifordham.com.