My daughter Allie is leaving for college in a week. Her room is piled with shopping bags filled with blankets, towels, jeans, sweaters. She won’t talk about going.
I say, “I’m going to miss you,” and she gives me one of her looks and leaves the room. Another time I say, in a voice so friendly it surprises even me: “Do you think you’ll take your posters and pictures with you, or will you get new ones at college?”
She answers, her voice filled with annoyance, “How should I know?”
　My daughter is off with friends most of the time. Yesterday was the last day she’d have until Christmas with her friend Katharine, whom she’s known since kindergarten. Soon, it will be her last day with Sarah, Claire, Heather... and then it will be her last day with me.
　My friend Karen told me, “The August before I left for college, I screamed at my mother the whole month. Be prepared.”
　I stand in the kitchen, watching Allie make a glass of iced tea. Her face, once so open and trusting, is closed to me. I struggle to think of something to say to her, something meaningful and warm. I want her to know I’m excited about the college she has chosen, that I know the adventure of her life is just starting and that I am proud of her. But the look on her face is so mad that I think she might hit me if I open my mouth.
　One night — after a long period of silence between us — I asked what I might have done or said to make her angry with me. She sighed and said, “Mom, you haven’t done anything. It’s fine.” It is fine — just distant.
　Somehow in the past we had always found some way to connect. When Allie was a baby, I would go to the day-care center after work. I’d find a quiet spot and she would nurse — our eyes locked together, reconnecting with each other.
　In middle school, when other mothers were already regretting the distant relationship they felt with their adolescent daughters, I hit upon a solution: rescue measures. I would show up occasionally at school, sign her out of class and take her somewhere — out to lunch, to the movies, once for a long walk on the beach. It may sound irresponsible, but it kept us close when other mothers and daughters were quarrelling. We talked about everything on those outings — outings we kept secret from family and friends.
　When she started high school, I’d get up with her in the morning to make her a sandwich for lunch, and we’d silently drink a cup of tea together before the 6:40 bus came.
　A couple of times during her senior year I went into her room at night, the light off, but before she went to sleep. I’d sit on the edge of her bed, and she’d tell me about problems: a teacher who lowered her grade because she was too shy to talk in class, a boy who teased her, a friend who had started smoking. Her voice, coming out of the darkness, was young and questioning.
　A few days later I’d hear her on the phone, repeating some of the things I had said, things she had adopted for her own.
　But now we are having two kinds of partings. I want to say good-bye in a romantic way. For example, we can go to lunch and lean across the table and say how much we will miss each other. I want smiles through tears, bittersweet moments of memory and the chance to offer some last bits of wisdom.
But as she prepares to depart, Allie has hidden her feelings. When I reach to touch her arm, she pulls away. She turns down every invitation I extend. She lies on her bed, reading Emily Dickinson until I say I have always loved Emily Dickinson, and then she closes the book.
Some say the tighter your bond with your child, the greater her need to break away, to establish her own identity in the world. The more it will hurt, they say. A friend of mine who went through a difficult time with her daughter but now has become close to her again, tells me, “Your daughter will be back to you.”
“I don’t know,” I say. I sometimes feel so angry that I want to go over and shake Allie. I want to say, “Talk to me — or you’re grounded!” I feel myself wanting to say that most horrible of all mother phrases: “Think of everything I’ve done for you.”
Late one night, as I’m getting ready for bed she comes to the bathroom door and watches me brush my teeth. For a moment, I think I must be brushing my teeth in a way she doesn’t approve of. But then she says, “I want to read you something.” It’s a brochure from her college. “These are tips for parents.”
I watch her face as she reads the advice aloud: “ ‘Don’t ask your child if she is homesick,’ it says. ‘She might feel bad the first few weeks, but don’t let it worry you. This is a natural time of transition. Write her letters and call her a lot. Send a package of candies...’ ”
Her voice breaks, and she comes over to me and buries her head in my shoulder. I stroke her hair, lightly, afraid she’ll run if I say a word. We stand there together for long moments, swaying. Reconnecting.
I know it will be hard again. It’s likely the