By Sonya Spillmann
@sonyaspillmann

She stands alone, balancing on the edge of the curb. She wears navy sweatpants and a red shirt, the colors of the high school behind her. Her long hair, parted down the middle, gathers in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Hearing the engine, she looks up from her phone. I put the car in park, and she walks in my direction.

She hardly smiles as she huffs into the seat. Hi. Hi. “Nervous?” I ask. She nods a little and says yeah in a barely audible voice. 

“Can I drive?” she asks, straight faced. At least the girl hasn’t lost her sense of humor.  

“No,” I reply, hands at ten and two. “You can’t drive to the appointment for your permit.” We sit in punctuated silence for another mile, conversing only when I see a sign on which she might soon be tested. “What’s that?” I point. “Lane is ending,” she says. “What’s that?” “Merge,” she says. Then she tells me it’s no longer ten and two. “It’s five and eight now.” I nod but keep my hands right where they are.  

At the DMV, we sit in black plastic chairs, and I fill out the application so she can keep studying. I chide myself for this. Wouldn’t a truly responsible parent make her fill out this form? But it’s moments like these where I think, sure, in an ideal world, I’d love to fulfill all my romantic versions of parenthood. But this is real life, honey, and I don’t like wasting time. 

“KA-134” an automated voice announces. “Window Two.” We rise.

A man (a boy?) at Window Two smiles at us and asks my daughter for two forms of identification. I pull out a red folder from my bag. Earlier that day I stuffed a personal letter addressed to her, two of the many college flyers we’re starting to receive, and her birth certificate into its pocket. “Which do you need?” I ask, displaying each like a dealer at a poker table. He takes the college flyer and her birth certificate. 

“How old are you?” the man-boy behind the counter asks. 

“Fifteen and a half,” she says with pride. 

Years ago when I was in labor with her, my OBGYN placed his knowing and experienced hands on my contracting belly. “Five-fourteen,” he announced to the room. He turned around to the midwife, who was holding up a pen. In blue ink on the top corner of my hospital sheet, he wrote 5‘14”  then turned back around, pen extended. My midwife, the one who would stay with me for the remainder of my labor, took the pen and dropped it back into her pocket. I looked at her with a question on my face. 

“Because your water broke, we can feel the baby better,” she told me. Their manual external measurements were likely very accurate, she explained. “It’s fun, a little game” she said, “for us to guess.” She pressed gently on my abdomen while the physician commented on the World Cup game on the television. “You’ll have a soccer player on your hands,” he told us. 

“Five-thirteen” the midwife said, removing her hands from my belly. Then—Price is Right style—wrote 5’13” under the doctor’s number. 

This now 15-(and a half)-year-old sits at a computer taking her test, and I am excused back into the waiting room. Ten minutes later, she’s back by my side. “How’d you do?” I ask. “I think okay?” she says with a shrug and a smile. Of course she’ll pass. I know she’ll pass. And I also know—even though it’s terrible to admit—the tiniest part of me, a very honest part of me, wants her to fail. I want someone other than me to tell her she’s not allowed to take this next step into her own life. Into adulthood. Away from me. 

They call her name. “Window Four.” It’s a woman this time, brown hair and she does look old enough to work here. She hands my daughter a signed piece of paper. “This is your temp,” she says while stamping another paper, punching a hole, stapling. She runs through her lines about keeping this with you at all times and ends with, “You’ll get your card in the mail in 7-10 days.” Sort of like a birth certificate, I think to myself. 

Then the woman smiles in a way that signals our time together has come to an end. This finality registers with me after a short pause. Then, truly astonished, I say, “That’s it?” 

The woman behind the counter smiles and says, “Yes, that’s it.”

Fifteen (and a half) years ago, a nurse wheeled me out of the postpartum unit and waited at the curb with me until my husband retrieved our car. Just minutes earlier, I’d strapped the baby, my first baby, into the carseat resting on my lap. No one even watched me do it. My daughter was small (5 lbs. 11 oz., let the record show) and lost weight in those first days of life. I had to use the premie head bumper to keep her neck upright. “Is this okay?” I asked the nurse before we left the room. She lifted the blanket for a peek, and with a quick wiggle of the latch, said, “It’s good” before helping me into the wheelchair. 

But aren’t you going to, oh I don't know, give me some advice? Check to make sure I can change a diaper in my sleep? Do you want to see me pick her up while I support her neck properly? Make sure I know infant CPR? 

Aren’t you going to run down some list of Everything Every Parent Must Know before you send me home with her? Are you all crazy? You can’t just let me take this child home. You realize I’m new to motherhood and do not know what I’m doing. This doesn’t seem real and yet she’s here. Here! Outside of me. You must know this world is dangerous and unpredictable and please just tell me how to keep her safe. 

That’s it? That’s it. 

My husband placed the carseat into its base. A quick wave. Polite smiles. Goodbye, have a nice life, best of luck with this new human you have no idea how to take care of. And then off we drove. I cried most of the way home. 

And now, the same baby is legally allowed to drive me home. This can’t be right. 

Where are the rules? Where is the check list?

“What,” I say to the woman behind the counter, “I mean, who—” my words crash into each other, spinning and sliding, colliding. “I’m sorry. Can you just tell me what she’s allowed to do?” I finally ask. “What do I need to know?”

The woman looks at me quizzically, and I sense my daughter’s annoyance. I shake my head a little, disoriented, confident I’ve missed an important list of restrictions somewhere. 

No driving at rush hour. 
Or after the sun goes down. 
No driving on the highway. Ever.
Or with music playing. 
With friends. 
With siblings younger than 10. 

Should I feed her every three hours?
What if she sleeps longer? 
Or wakes up sooner?
Is her bath water too hot? Too cold? 
What do I do when she cries?
How many layers should I put her in on a 90-degree day in July? 
What’s the number for poison control? 
Can she sleep in my arms or should I put her down in the crib? 
Just tell me what I need to know!

Maybe what I want to ask is: Who is going to test me? Who is going to make sure I know what I’m doing? Who is going to tell me how best to keep my children safe? 

And who would even try, when we all know perfectly well we can’t. Heartbreakingly so, we just can’t. 

And in this moment, I feel the need to explain to the woman behind the counter that this young lady next to me here, you see, she used to wear butterfly wings to the grocery store. She used to be so small it was hard to believe she was real. She used to smile so wide at me her pacifier would drop out of her mouth. So, please, please, all I’m asking is for some guidance. All I’m saying is that I don’t know what I’m doing. I am not ready. 

Oh, motherhood. What are you, but a continual series of surrenderings. 

We exit the building and my daughter enters the driver's seat. Behind the wheel, she buckles, adjusts the mirrors, and—just like that—starts to drive.