If Suki runs her finger down the old Pan American highway from Nome to Punta Arenas she comes to the realization she’s been to every state, lake, or province that it touches.  Whether landing on a strip in the jungle being met by an Indian in a canoe or in the 16th arrondissement in Paris, we carry no guides, maps, or reservations.  We ask alot of questions and use good-fashioned fear to get by.  The first day can be a downer with three empty weeks staring at us, but by the last day we can be teary and kissing some family good-bye.

              A lot of it is not easy but over time I see the payoff, our bond and her sense of place in the world.  Suki is aware of the difference between Slovenia and Slovakia, and that you can only get to Andorra by bus, and in Iceland you can run a race at midnight.  She knows the roads across Mongolia are teeth-rattling, and you can tell immigration in Cuba not to stamp the passport.  She did the legwork for our book on the Terra Cotta warriors, had dumplings with her orphanage director, and put her foot over the border of Paraguay before our taxi driver sped us to the safety of Brazil.  She’s seen the eyes of Guatemalan sisters taking their first elevator ride and going to their first movie.  No wonder she got bored got on a cruise. 

            Our calendar warns me of an end to this grand journey.  My baby is 16 now and the advice pouring in tells me to prepare her for the real world.  SAT’s are more real than Burma; volunteer hours in the library are worth more than the Siberian Rail.  Have I done the right thing?

            Okay, okay, an A for geography, but how would I be scored on my original contract to be a mummy and daddy North Haven?  I’ll get no ballots for the hall of fame.  Right from day one I couldn’t get through Goodnight Moon without a yawn and I lasted maybe 80 pages of Harry Potter.  Yes, that was me snoring in the car with sports radio on while she was swinging in the playground or dashing into Stop & Shop.  No, I never baked cupcakes.  And I probably overdosed her on spaghetti.  I didn’t teach her to sew a button, do tie-dye, or put on lipstick.  I confess it was I who told her to ignore the darks and whites in the wash. 

            I dressed her up as a ladybug for the Halloween party in kindergarten, only to have the teacher block us at the door.  It was the wrong day.  I had no stomach for the PTA and only grudgingly showed up at her band concerts and parades.  Helpless, I let other moms pick out her gown for the spring dance.  You know I have no idea where she gets her bras.  Let’s see, did I mention menstruation?  As for the the birds and bees, the school did that, right? 

            She battled problems and I ask myself, did I not do enough?  There were two ear operations, a GI bleed, a scoliotic back, bunions that bent her feet to the point of pain.  Every winter she filled the sink with her nosebleeds.  I blamed myself and cried for a day for missing her slipped epiphysis (this one requires a pin in the hip—turns out they read the film wrong, a near-miss). 

            Was it my laissez-faire that led to one of those “Are you the father of…..?” calls from American Eagle Outfitter, or that caused her clarinet in the music final to go pffft and the breakdown that followed?  Because I never read enough to her, is that why her only “books” are People magazine?  And her essays are is a mix of English and instant messaging.  Is it my fault when I explain a word likes abstruse and she tells me, “Daddy, I can’t learn one more word?” while chiming the words to Eminem.  Oh, the weight and guilt of parenthood; especially flying alone, you have no one else to blame.        

            While most families were happy having their Sunday picnics and doing Pictionary, I had Suki training for the Special Forces.  I propped her up on cross-country skis at four.  Soon she was doing laps around the block, her marathoner dad logging her splits with a stopwatch.  By eight she was helping me in class teaching students how to do a spinal tap.  Then she was on to triathlons.  By 12 she had “suffered” through the last of the American Film Institute’s top one hundred films (all black & white, she protested).  Two years later it was a woodworking class with retired men making furniture.  And on her sixteenth birthday, she reluctantly took the bow and blistered ole Dad the stern in the Adironadack Canoe Classic, 90 miles of rivers and stormy lakes against 300 other rabid kayakers and “war” canoeists.  What did Nitsche say: “What doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger?”  Tell her that. 

            Sooner or later the drill guy gives in, the guard changes.  She blossomed from the little girl who could never ever beat me at anything, except maybe coming up with quarters under the seat, to the young woman who programs my cellphone, tells me not to wear that shirt with that tie, hands me the lighter bag, and yes, the final blow, outdashes me to the car.  She mercilessly patted my belly and asked, “What happened, Daddy?”  I hung up a faded picture of a trim me winning a race and countered by telling her, “Wait til you’re 60.” 

            Finally independence arrives, but not with celebration.  For our first six years I never went a ten hour stretch without her.  I even mowed the yard holding her hand.  When I got called into work late at night and I pulled her out of bed and propped her up on the car seat like Weekend at Bernie’s.  Now I’m relegated to walking 50 paces behind her at her high school.  It’s getting worse.  Like today, she’s in Spain and it’s been five days since I had heard her.  I gaze at her room with its posters and teddies.  I’m “letting go.”     

            The phone rings and its Suki in Salamanca.  She’ll be there for a month to learn Spanish, get some European culture, test being away from home, and maybe find her first little romance.

            “Hi, dad.”

            “Suki,” I said, “are you having a good time?”  I prepped myself not to be angry.

            “Yeah.”

            “Do you have friends?”

            “Yeah, lots.”

            “How’s school?”

            “Okay.”

            “And the family house you’re staying with?”

            “I just eat and sleep there.”

            “Suki, I need to hear from you.  It’s been since Saturday.”

            “I sent an email.”           

            “Email?  I didn’t get it.”

            “Maybe I didn’t.  Sorry.  What are you doing?”

            “Me?  Not much.  I miss you.”  I’m thinking of the empty days before Suki.

            “I love you, Daddy.”  Those days are coming back.          

            I look out the window over my desk and I can see Suki, as she does each September, leading her high school swim team out of the locker room for a meet.  They perform their cheers.  You ask me, Suki is the loudest.  Suki is in the medley relay, one of the four best swimmers.  She does her leadoff signature backstroke, puts them in a slim lead, the butterflyer dives in, and Suki leans close to the water screaming.  The last one, the freestyler, touches the wall and they embrace and dance over their narrow win. 

           Across the pool, I get a smile and wave from my girl.  I smile too.  Because when they placed that hapless four year-old on my lap in Hangzhou, this is what I envisioned.