We had stayed over night near Dartmouth-Hitchcock hospital for medical and weather-related reasons, and the roads to the highway were still icey enough to keep me from enjoying the views, so Thing1 and I talked about his auto-immune disorder and how he will handle these emergencies next year when he’s on his own and about his upcoming college decisions.
I was about to take a slower road but Thing1 gave an annoyed snort.
“Can’t we take 91? If we get back any later, I’ll miss work, and I already missed my midterm.”
I was a bit surprised that he would want to work when I knew he was feeling shaky but decided we’d have that argument when we got home. He was not about to let it go, however, and, after expressing an unwillingness to ruin a perfect attendance record at work for weather or illness, he talked me into letting him go.
I got on the next ramp for 91 South. I was not sure that he had the energy, but still I told him, “I could not be prouder of you if you had gotten into Harvard.”
“I didn’t apply to Harvard, Mom.”
The sardonic tone always gets my eyes to roll to the heavens which is how I was unexpectedly fully able to take in the winter fantasy that flanked us on both sides of the highway. After the last week of worry, it was almost as lovely a happy straw to grasp as the realization that my sick boy still had enough energy and sense of humor to be a smart ass (I don’t know where he gets it).