I was capable of solving only one problem on my own. With a rainbow selection of colored liquids in front of us, I was charged with combining two vials of liquid into a tincture that would be purple in hue. “Red and blue make purple,” I chanted gleefully, ecstatic to be channeling a mastery of kindergarten-level science knowledge.
Finding the final component to our virus antidote depended on the very thing that once threatened to derail my college aspirations. In my senior year of high school, I’d begged my chemistry teacher to award me a C minus, instead of the D I was earning because of my refusal to memorize the periodic table, explaining that I could lose my spot at N.Y.U., where I’d already been accepted. “I’m going to be an actress and I will never need to use the periodic table,” I pleaded.
Now, the future of the world depended on my recalling what element Bh stood for. The sound of zombies banging on the door was getting louder when Ezra correctly identified it as Bohrium. Zombie Apocalypse averted. The kid would be returning to campus.
That night, I slept the deep sleep of a parent who felt secure about their kid’s future. The next morning my ex-husband and I convened to drive them to the airport. “You’re doing all the right things, everything is going to work out,” I repeated, and this time I meant it.
It wasn’t until Ezra was escorted into a private T.S.A. screening room that we learned that they’d lost their passport and were attempting to go through security without ID. And they’d gone to a late night bonfire after averting the zombie apocalypse and hadn’t showered or changed clothes. Traces of chemicals from the accelerant used at the bonfire were clinging to their clothing and hair. Talk about adding fuel to the fire.
Luckily, in a moment of inspired problem solving, they’d handed their fake ID issued under a different name than their plane ticket to my ex-husband. To their credit, Ezra remained calm not only in the escape room but also in this real-life stressful situation. After finding no weapons, and perhaps because of the throngs of other college-bound kids at the airport, our kid was soon cleared to fly. They’d managed not just one, but two narrow escapes in the space of 24 hours. And of course, they were actively eluding an accidental overdose through choosing the path of sobriety, bringing their running tally of narrow escapes to three.
I was angling to catch a glimpse of them as ascending the escalator, when a line from the John Cassavetes film “Love Streams” popped into my head. Gena Rowlands says, “Love is a stream. It’s continuous, it doesn’t stop.” And I pictured the umbilical cord, that awful feeding tube and a river of love connecting us. But a river flows in only one direction. My kid wasn’t looking back at me. Ezra was facing forward, toward their future.
Source : Nytimes
