Notes: Three weeks ago, I thought this would be a short little story I could write in one day inspired by Rusty's line about not needing breakup advice from Sharon. Yeah. So there's three chapters, one per child, and the other two are just about done so there won't be much of a wait between updates. If you miss the iPod reference, this one takes place in early 2002.

Words of Wisdom

Part I: Emily

There were three door slams. The first, the metallic crash of the security door. The second, the thud of the heavy front door that rattled the door knocker and the windows on each side. The third, loud, a bedroom door slammed with great force.

Sharon raised her eyebrows at the first, stood up at the second, and was too slow to stop the third. Her bedroom was at the far end of the house, looking out over the backyard. Emily and Ricky had the two bedrooms near the front of the house... which also meant that they had a shorter distance to cross to reach their rooms, and by the time Sharon reached the hallway, the door had long since been shut and locked.

"Emily?"

"Go away." The words were teary and half-wailed.

"Open the door, please."

Silence.

Sharon silently counted to ten and then repeated the request. Sternly this time.

"Why should I?"

She could intimidate her superior officers with a twitch of her eyebrows, but would that make her children take her seriously?

"Because those are the terms of our agreement, and I know you want to keep your allowance."

"I don't care."

"And your car."

From inside the room, Sharon heard a half-muffled scream of frustration, but footsteps stomped towards the door. When it was wrenched open a moment later, Emily's face was blotchy with tears. She managed an impressive glare all the same. "Don't even think about coming in."

After what felt like a thousand fights where her normally quiet, thoughtful girl had become an angry, confusing creature and Sharon had lost her patience more times than she was proud of, they'd come to an agreement where Emily wouldn't lock herself in her room if Sharon would talk to her from the doorway, and that Emily wouldn't shout if Sharon kept "that enunciating thing you do when you're mad" to a minimum.

Sharon leaned back against the door frame, folding her arms across her chest. "I won't."

Emily gave her an untrusting stare and stomped back to the bed, where she settled herself with a huff.

She was still dressed in her leotard. She wore a pair of pink sweatpants over it, a pair that she must've changed into after coming home. They weren't fit to be worn out of the house anymore, threadbare as they were, but she stubbornly refused to part with them. It didn't help that they'd been bought more than one growth spurt ago, when Emily had been more a girl than a young woman, small enough that on a bad day she would've let her mother soothe her with a hug and a kiss.

Sharon tried not to sigh at the thought of the days when she could hold them in her lap and comfort them. "So what's wrong?"

Silently, Emily reached up, beginning to work bobby pins and elastic ties out of her hair.

"Did something happen in class today?"

"No." Emily gave her a sidelong glance, the sort she used when trying to gauge Sharon's patience without letting on what she was doing, and shrugged. "Nothing happened in class."

The elastic holding her bun in place caught on her hair when Emily tried to tug it loose. She winced, then made a quiet growl of frustration.

"Would you like some help?"

Another glare, then Emily lowered her chin in a nod and scooted forward in bed enough to make room for Sharon to sit behind her. Sharon rubbed Emily's shoulders as she settled herself on the bed, trying not to frown at the tension she felt gathered there.

Carefully, she untangled the elastic, working it free of Emily's hair as gently as possible, then, when Emily didn't immediately pull away, began removing the rest of the pins from her daughter's hair.

"It's Danny."

From the intonation, Sharon inferred that this was about Danny the dancer, surprisingly graceful for someone so lanky, the one she'd been on the outs with recently, and not Dani the cellist, whom Emily had been friends with since kindergarten and who'd decided back in seventh grade that she and Emily were going to Julliard together.

"Ah." Sharon dropped a pin into the pile growing beside her thigh. "I haven't heard that name in awhile."

Emily shrugged. "'cause I haven't said it in awhile."

The duh was implied.

"Did the two of you have a fight?"

"We didn't talk." Emily shrugged. "I saw him with Jason durning break. They were totally making out, so... he probably didn't see me, anyway."

"At the school?"

"Well... yeah. Break's not really long enough for them to go anywhere else. And it's just kissing, Mom. It's totally not a big deal."

"It's a little more than just kissing, isn't it?"

"Mom."

The conversation was beginning to go sideways.

"So is that what you're upset about? Seeing him with Jason?"

"What?" Emily twisted as far around as she could with Sharon's hands still in her hair. "No, I don't care about that. They seemed happy. I'm happy for him."

"Then?"

"Then?" Emily repeated.

Sharon pulled the last clip out of Emily's hair, and moved the small pile of bobby pins and hair elastics to the nightstand. "I'm not sure what the problem is, honey."

"He didn't tell me he was dating anyone." Emily's shoulders suddenly quivered. "He never tells me anything anymore. He was my best friend, and now he won't even talk to me unless he has to in class and I don't know why."

Sharon smoothed the ends of Emily's hair flat against her shoulders. "Where's your brush?"

"Nightstand."

It was in the drawer, nestled amongst empty gum wrapper, a pot of dried up lip gloss, and that new iPod player that had been the only thing either child had wanted last Christmas. Sharon, who didn't routinely spend eight hundred dollars on her children's toys, had hesitated. But... she could afford it, and they were such good kids, both of them, and both teenagers now. Old enough to be responsible for their own things.

She was pleased to see that there were only minor scuffs on the case, and the iPod itself looked as good as new.

Sharon settled back, brush in hand.

"Start from the bottom."

She said it as though Sharon hadn't brushed her hair for her the first six years of her life. Sharon prodded Emily between the shoulder blades with the brush handle, and was rewarded with a quiet laugh.

"It's always hard, you know," she said, beginning to brush a section of Emily's hair. "When your relationship with someone important to you changes."

"I just... I thought we could still be friends," Emily said. "That's what I wanted. That's what he said he wanted."

"Give it some time."

"It's been, like, a month. And a half."

"And it feels like forever?"

"Mom." Emily started to pull away.

"I'm not making fun of you, honey. That's a long time to be without your best friend."

"Oh."

"Have you talked to him since you broke up?" Sharon asked, beginning to brush again. "Does he know how you're feeling?"

"No."

"Have you thought about it?"

"I don't think that would help."

"And why do you say that?"

"We're still in class together," Emily said. "I—like, I see him all the time. If he wanted to talk to me, he's had plenty of chances."

"Remind me," Sharon said. "Whose idea was it to break up?"

"Well... mine." Emily hesitated. "Because I could tell he wasn't really into me. But we were only together for, like, a month. It's not like I was in love with him. I—I mean, I love him, but... not like that." She tilted her head back to let Sharon reach better. "I think I would've broken up with him anyway, even if he wasn't gay."

Sharon said nothing, and kept brushing.

"I don't care that he's gay, Mom," Emily said, suddenly sounding unsure. "He has to know that, right?"

"I think..." Sharon set the brush down. "I think that it's hard to know that the world isn't going to be kind to you, and that it's easy to forget that there are people who care about you."

"So you think I should talk to Danny."

"I do."

"You could be wrong," Emily said. "You're not always right."

"That's what I have you for," she said wryly. "To let me know when I'm wrong."

All the time, apparently.

"But, Mom." Emily's shoulders were tense again. "What if it's too weird for him?"

"Then you'll have to respect that," Sharon told her. "But at least you'll both know how you feel."

"What do you know, anyway?" Emily said, without heat. "Grandma and Grandpa never let you date."

"They didn't," Sharon agreed, a smile half-forming as an old memory unearthed itself. "But they did let me go to prom."

"Right," Emily said. "Grandma showed me pictures. You're wearing this dress with weird ruffles and standing next to this guy with total seventies hair."

"Well... it was the seventies. We were very fashionable." Sharon tried not to sound too amused. If Emily thought those were bad, she ought to ask her grandmother to see her aunt's prom pictures. Those had been taken in the eighties. "That guy you're talking about was a friend of mine. Ted. We went together with some other friends. We all had dinner beforehand at this nice German restaurant—"

"Mom."

"We had a good time," Sharon said, still smiling. "And at the end of the night, before he brought me home, we kissed."

"Gross."

It had been, actually. Sharon cleared her throat, and gave Emily's hair a few final brushes. They definitely didn't need to discuss that.

"We were both a little caught up in the moment," she said. "And afterwards, we were both too embarrassed to talk to each other. It took us almost until graduation day to sort out that neither of us wanted to be more than friends."

What had followed was almost an entire month of averting their eyes should they pass each other in the halls, and frozen, uncomfortable smiles when they accidentally made eye contact. It made her laugh, to look back on that time now that she was forty. (Ish.) At the time, though, it had felt a little agonizing.

Sharon sorted through her memory, trying to remember what had happened to Ted afterwards. She'd kept track of her friends for awhile, but... well, her life had been a mess for awhile there and even now that she had it sorted out, things were still hectic more often than not. There were work emergencies and child crises and, when she was lucky, the occasional night out with a friend. Between everything, she'd fallen out of touch with a lot of people.

Princeton, she thought. Ted had gone to Princeton. No, or... Yale? She knew that he'd stayed on the East Coast, and last she'd heard from anyone, he was married with two daughters. Maybe she'd see him at the twenty-fifth reunion. It would be nice, to catch up with him. With everyone.

Sharon shook herself free of her reminiscing. "Just think about it."

"Okay," Emily said. "Fine. I will."

She said it in that way teenagers did, wrapped in exasperation and reluctance, because heaven forbid that she admit her mother might not be completely wrong about everything.

"Good." She squeezed Emily's shoulder. "If you slam any more doors while you're thinking, you're grounded."

"Just because you're a captain now doesn't mean you can boss me around all the time, you know." But Emily turned around, scooting closer until she could wrap her arms around Sharon's waist. She squeezed hard, the sort of hug where she held on for all she was worth, and when Sharon brought her arms up around her in return, Emily wriggled a little closer and tucked her face against the side of Sharon's neck.

Sharon smiled and kissed the side of her head. They'd see about that.