Free Between the Tides by Susannah Marren

talking about? Who is writing a paper for whom?”
    â€œ El Guardian entre el Centeno, The Catcher in the Rye . I thought I’d write about how Holden Caulfield is a dweeb who wants us to feel sorry for him. Tom wants another angle, maybe about the girls who Holden calls along the way.” Matilde is slurring her words and I’m not sure why.
    â€œIt sounds interesting; both takes sound interesting. But why wouldn’t you be writing your own paper, Tom?” That feeling washes over me—my children aren’t like this, my life isn’t about morality or being a referee. “Matilde has homework of her own, Tom,” I say.
    â€œLet’s bring the whole story to Dad, see what he says. I guess he won’t care that you write my paper, he’ll care if it’s late and I’m inconvenienced,” Tom suggests. A petrifying thought, that Charles might condone the idea for Tom’s sake.
    â€œTom? Why are you bringing Mom and Dad into it?” asks Matilde. “Dad will call it cheating—plagiarism. We shouldn’t tell him.”
    Matilde and Tom fall silent and it occurs to me that they’ll work it out on their own, without much consideration for our conversation. The worst part is that I’m relieved. I look in the rearview mirror, where I see Claire is asleep and the strip of candy buttons, another Jess present, has fallen on her chest.
    â€œMatilde, please wake up Claire. If she sleeps in a car at night she won’t fall asleep in her bed.”
    â€œClaire. Claire, wake up.” Matilde is moving like a rag doll.
    I look again in the rearview mirror. “Matilde, are you all right?”
    â€œMatilde is fine,” Tom says. “So Jess, she’s your friend from the Shore, huh, Mom?”
    â€œThe Shore … college until she transferred … a long time ago.” I pause. “You know, Jess’s husband, William, is the CEO of Elliot Memorial. He’s Dad’s boss.”
    â€œDad’s boss? Dad has a boss? I thought Dad is the boss,” Tom says.
    â€œDad is head of orthopedic surgery. Jess’s husband runs the entire hospital.”
    We pull up at the house and I want to apologize for how hackneyed it must seem to the children after being at Jess’s.
    â€œMatilde, darling, let’s start unbuckling the twins,” I say.
    Tom jumps out of the front seat and slams the front door. In an unusual moment, he opens the back door for Matilde. She almost falls out.
    â€œTom?” I say, trying to see Matilde’s face in the dark. He is holding her up as if she’s depleted and I wonder if we each ask too much of her.
    â€œLeave her, Mom. It’s okay. I’ve got the twins, don’t worry.”

 
    NINE
    â€œShouldn’t Matilde be with her friends?” Charles asks. He is ready to leave for the third Saturday morning in a row for an early round of golf.
    â€œMaybe, Charles.”
    â€œNo, seriously, Lainie, Matilde needs to be with the girls in her grade. Today is a Saturday, for chrissake!”
    Perhaps he has forgotten—if he ever noticed—how Matilde spent her weekends in the city. From the age of five, she divided her time between painting and learning about artists, playing with Barbie at her friends’ houses, and being a guest at manicure/pedicure birthday parties. As she grew older, she continued her balancing act. “She’ll figure it out. Charles, she’ll be fine,” I say.
    An hour later Matilde is on a stepstool, facing the unframed canvas, six by eight, that she and I are going to paint together, a brush in her hand. What I love most about the studio is that it faces to the north and the sun filters in during the day. I have two easels; one is new for Matilde and then my own.
    â€œMom. I called Grandma. She said she is proud that Dad is the ‘chief.’ She said that he is revered and that he changes people’s