She is twenty-five-years-old now. Until recently she did all the right things and stayed away from all the wrong things. She didn’t drink, she didn’t do drugs, she didn’t chase boys. She disapproved of me when I used curse words. She did all her homework on her own, she got good grades, she never raised her voice or argued. She even did her own laundry and cleaned her room when the floor disappeared under piles of clothes. She changed her own sheets. In short, she made my life easy.
Sometimes I would look at her and wonder how I got such a daughter. I fought with my parents, I smoked hashish in high school, and, at fifteen, I had a boyfriend who was the opposite of what any parent would wish for their daughter. A good-looking, daredevil, high-school dropout. Because I did my homework on time and was a good student they left me alone, but unbeknownst to them, I was a raging rebel.
When I was twenty-one, I took off to Brazil, without money or a plan, and disappeared from my parents’ life for two years. I taught Hebrew in Rio, traveled in Peru and Bolivia on two dollars a day—all before credit cards and internet cafes and without a compass or a map.
But this daughter of mine, she came out totally different. As soon as she finished high school she went to college, and then she went to grad school, and before completing her master’s got a Fulbright scholarship to do research in South Korea. People used to tell me that I did a great job raising her, and all I could think was “I did nothing. She came like that. I only made sure there was food in the fridge and took her to play dates.”
Her dad and I did not get along. We separated when she was five. We agreed on nothing except that the girl we brought to this world was nothing like us.
Then, shortly before she took off to South Korea, she asked me to go with her to get her car smog tested. When it was time to get the car back, I gave her my credit card. She took it to the counter. The man gave her the bill and asked her to sign it.
Before I had a chance to get up from the chair and come to the counter, she turned to me and said, “It’s OK, I know how to sign your name.”
On the way to the car, I asked her how she knew what my signature looked like.
“Ah, I learned to forge your signature when I was in fourth grade,” she said nonchalantly.
It hit me like a bomb. My daughter forged my signature.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“I watched you signing something and practiced.”
“Why did you have to forge my signature?”
“We had to get a parent’s signature on some homework, so I forged your signature. You were recovering from surgery, and I didn’t want to bother you.”
I couldn’t believe it. This good girl who never argues with grownups, who doesn’t drink and do drugs, committed a crime right under my nose and only now I find out. And what if she’s been carrying the burden of the offense all these years, the guilt suffocating her, the weight of the secret she had to hide from me clouding her judgment. How did she deal with that? How damaging was that secret to her soul?
We got in the car. She started driving down the street. After a few moments of silence, I decided I had to say something.
“Have you been keeping this secret from me all these years?”
She shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”
“What do you mean? You forged my signature and you waited fifteen years to tell me. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“I don’t feel guilty, mom. Ms. Saint Germaine wanted that stupid signature and I wasn’t going to ask you to do it. I don’t care.”
It took me a few minutes to digest this news. My daughter committed a crime, and she didn’t care. She was completely unfazed by it. She was not burdened by guilt or regret. No shame. No embarrassment for being caught. Just complete and total nonchalance, like nothing had happed.
I could not be happier with this discovery. My daughter is a normal person. She can do wrong. She does have a part of me. That little criminal streak that can push you to break the rules that make no sense. I felt so proud of her. All the Fulbrights in the world could not have made me happier. I could finally say that I raised my daughter in my image. Not perfect but always striving to be a better person.
