Co-conspirators

[vaneramos]

We go long spaces hardly seeing each other, then suddenly have four weeks to spend together. The texture of my relationship with my daughters changes drastically, leaving me breathless. I don't have as much influence as I would like. On the other hand our long-distance relationship makes it easier for us to be friends.

Last summer Marian was 10 and already starting puberty. We had some bad arguments. I felt like a bully.

This year her body is changing even more dramatically, but we can look each other in the eye and break into laughter.

One evening she was telling me stories about camp and said, "Ya know what's really funny?"

"No I don't," I replied.

She stared at me.

"You're so literal," she said.

After several moments of silence, I said, "So are you going to tell me?"

"Tell you what?" she asked.

"What's really funny?"

"I forget."

We both started giggling uncontrollably.

She had run out of reading material, so on Wednesday at a bookstore in Huntsville I suggested A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I had never read it, but remembered my friends talking about it in the 1980s and thought it would keep her entertained for a little while.

She giggled and chuckled for the next two days. Meanwhile I was constantly on the verge of tears, reading pegkerr's The Wild Swans. I was a little jealous. We both finished our books on the same day. Then I needed some comic relief, so I picked up The Hitchhiker's Guide and finished it in a single evening.

The next day we kept reciting Hitchhiker one-liners to each other.

"You're turning into a penguin. Stop it."

And we would both collapse in shrieks of laughter.

"Oh no, not again."

More laughter.

Brenna (9) was furious at being left out of the humour. So she grabbed the book and disappeared into the loft for the next couple of days. She is not as fond of novels as Marian, so I was delighted when she finished it and proclaimed it good.

One day while walking down the road we entertained ourselves by trying to have conversations only using questions. This sometimes deteriorated into sibling quarrels and insults, but at least we kept laughing about it.

Marian: "What if you're stupid?
Brenna: "What if I'm not?"
Marian: "What if you are?"
Brenna: "What if I'm not?"
Me: "Didn't you already say that?"
(A long silence.)
Brenna: "Why are you so quiet, Dad?"
Me: "What if I can't think of anything to say?"
Brenna: "Why don't we choose a subject to talk about?"
Marian: "Why is the sky blue?"
Me: "What colour do you expect it to be?"
Marian: "Green?"

After that, Marian tried it twice over the weekend when we were with other people. She would turn and ask me a question, followed by, "Are you catching on?" This was a cue to start playing the game.

We did it once in front of Doug, our neighbour, who is my age and a bigger tease than all of us put together. Our joke didn't last very long before he started asking us questions.

This morning at the breakfast table, we started doing it to my mother. But Mom likes to emcee conversations, and she must have felt the power shifting away from her. No sooner had Marian and I made eye contact, smiled vaguely, and uttered a single question each, than Mom got up from her chair and left the room.

At last, a co-conspirator.

I'm not sure whether the girls are growing up, or I'm regressing.