Sweet 16 and growing up fast

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

For years, I would tuck her in every night and sing a little song I made up: "Stay little. Stay little. Little, little stay. Little stay. Little stay little." Even before she understood, I sang these words to her.

But long after there was any need to tuck her in, when she was quite capable of getting into bed herself, I continued with the ritual and the song. It was dumb, I know, but it was a tradition and it was all ours.

"Don't grow," I would whisper after I shut off her light, before I closed her door. "I won't, Mommy, I promise," she always answered.

"You aren't growing while I'm gone, are you?" I would ask on the phone when I was away. She would assure me she wasn't.

But eventually a shirt wouldn't fit, or a dress was too short, or a pair of shoes too small, and I would say, "How did this happen? You didn't grow in the day, I know, because I would have seen you growing. And you didn't grow at night, either, because every morning when you woke up, you looked exactly the same as you did the day before. So when did you grow?"

And she would giggle, then, the game always new, and insist she had no idea, but that from now on she would definitely stop growing.

I think she tried. I know she allowed me to hang on and play these silly games long after I should have let go. She humored me; she humors me still. Tomorrow she will be 16 and yet she doesn't wince when she walks through the door, after a day at school, and I look up from my desk and ask, "So, how's my baby?" She lets me pretend.

"I can't wait to get my permit, Monday," she said a few days ago. There she was sitting in the car, in the passenger seat where she has sat for so many years, and there I was behind the wheel, in my usual place, when I looked at her and saw in a flash that she was almost grown-up, and knew I was experiencing a last time.

I've had intimations before. I see how she looks, sometimes, when she's all dressed up, her hair just right and her clothes just so. I've seen how other people, boys in particular, look at her. I hear a budding adult when she speaks. I sense a difference in her, a restlessness that wasn't there before.

But I have been reluctant to acknowledge these things. When my older children were growing up, there was always this one, my baby, five years behind.

Now there is no child in the wings. "Won't it be wonderful not to have to drive me anymore?" she said, her eyes eager, her smile bright. Once she wore braces. Once she insisted she would never go anywhere without me. "I'll be able to drive myself everywhere," she said.

Another job eliminated. Not that I loved driving, not all the time. But it kept me in touch - with my kids, with their friends, with their world, with their music. Besides, for 23 years I've had this job.

"I'm going to miss driving you," I told her. She looked at me and shook her head.

She does that a lot lately. And I look at her and shake mine, too. Because there's no denying it: she's not a baby, anymore. She grew up in spite of me.

Sixteen - it's one of those benchmarks. A time when you stand back and gawk and say I can't believe it. When you take photographs not just with a camera but with your eyes.

Sixteen - it's the stuff of old songs. "She comes on like a dream, peaches and cream, lips like strawberry wine, you're 16, you're beautiful and you're mine."

Mine, but not mine. That's the destiny of 16.

I never imagined 16. Not for this one. I was certain that if I paid attention, if I were always aware, time couldn't slip in and steal what I was guarding. And yet it did. Despite my vigilance, it stole a baby from a crib and replaced her with a toddler. It took a toddler and returned with a child. It traded a child for a teen. Now it has plucked from the teen the awkwardness that made her more youth than adult, and graced her with beauty and warmth and charm.

"Now will you stop growing," I will ask her tomorrow.

And she will promise as she always does, to try her hardest. But when I'm not looking, she will grow.