Through the Children's Gate (47 page)

R
eleased into sleep, I doze on the window seat and wake to find Olivia, early morning, already dressed in overalls and the Jason Giambi Yankees jersey that we bought for her the last time we went to the stadium. She sees my computer lying open and asks me what I am writing, and I tell her, a book about her and Luke growing up in New York. I tell her that I am thinking of calling it
Through the Children 's Gate.

She frowns. “I think it should be called
Through the Silver Gate,
not
Through the Children 's Gate, ”
she says. “Because it's very high, and it's good for grown-ups, it's a funny book for grown-ups, maybe, but it isn't a good thing for children—it just doesn't sound right for children. If I wasn't your daughter, I wouldn't get that title. I would pick
Through the Silver Gate,
because it's more beautiful, because kids like it more, because it's silvery, it's more beautiful, than children walking through a gate. Another good title would be
Through the Door.
It's just a simple name. Or
The Open Door or
something …” She pauses.

I sit up. She has the equable, short patience of every editor I have
ever lunched with, every publisher in whose office I have ever so uneasily sat. She'll give you the benefit of her views, which are sure and true, but she won't give them to you for too long. You're worth talking to but not worth really persuading. Neither of my children can any longer be my subjects. Her brother is a poet, but she is something far more potent and unstoppable; she is thinking like a publisher.

It's not for children, exactly, I explain, it's about children partly, about her and Luke. “But how about us? Did you write about Luke's lost tooth? Well, you should write about that. Did you write about my school play? You should have. Did you write about Ravioli? That's, like, so over for me. All my friends are teenagers now.”

“Do you
like
being a child?” I ask her. I never have before.

She nods. “Being a child is the most awesomest thing.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “Because your brains are, like, fresher and less filled up with memory. You have more free brains.”

And then she returns to her subject, just as an editor should. “Well, maybe, now that I know what it's about, I think … but … No. No. Not
Through the Gate
because, like,
every
book is named that. It's just going to be, like, when you grow up”—and here she looks at my doubtless wearied face and gently edits her words—“I mean not when you grow up but, like, when you're old, really,
really
old, you're going to ask yourself again and again, why did I name my book
Through the Children's Gate?
I know I'm right. Just trust me.”