Cutting Apron Strings

    I can't tell you when it happened.  I wish I knew.  It wasn't really one time exactly (and maybe that's the problem?) It was a series of events, really.  I think because it was a chain of occurrences that made me pay them no heed. Sort of like a flurry (not a legitimate snow fall) or a quick drizzle (not REAL torrents of rain)-its significance slipped by me.
    One minute we were out in the backyard doing chromotagraphy experiments w/ M-n-m's, or  was it making fizzy drinks w/citric acid? Maybe, it was playing restaurant or when the sleepovers started? I opened the doors to laughter, or secrets and to be told they didn't need anything. I was happy then.  I shut the door contentedly.  Or at least I thought I did?
     The next thing I remember vividly was driving them around and no one wanted to sit up front with me.  Suddenly, it seemed like there was an invisible wall of glass between the front seat and the back seat.  All these kids are still hopping in the car, but they climb in the back now, and no one is talking to me.  I try to make awkward conversation with them, but I see the panic in my son's eyes in my rear view mirror.   I catch his eye. I understand. I do sound a little bit desperate.
    My daughter goes off. Of course, I cry. I sleep initially with Brer Rabbit. I console myself with the idea of having my son for the next two years.  We will bond, we will get even closer I think.
     Fade to my soon- to- be eighteen year old short cutting through the side door of the garage on a school night.  We barely hear his steps as he tries to slip upstairs without divulging any information.  He pauses and looks over his shoulder as my husband and I call out a greeting, or even a query.  The incision is barely successful as we carefully extract the one syllable responses from him.  We hear his bedroom door click shut.  We look at each other numbly.