Since graduating, Emily has been teaching in an "alternative learning environment" in Lee, New Hampshire. A middle school, essentially, except with no discipline. No attendance requirements. No report cards. No grades at all.

"But how do you assess their progress?" Charlotte had asked, after Emily got the job.

"The students assess their own progress."

"But wouldn't they all give themselves As?"

"There are no As."

"There are no As?"

"They don't use letter grades."

"What do they use then?"

"The Watt School doesn't represent a child's progress with a number or a symbol," Emily recited, as if from a promotional brochure. "There are other ways of measuring progress. Like increased self-confidence. Ability to think critically. To perform creative problem-solving tasks. To articulate one's own growth."

Charlotte had no idea what she was talking about, but didn't press the issue. Emily had always thrown herself into projects and crusades and causes, most of which Charlotte didn't agree with or even understand. When she was five, Emily came home from kindergarten and announced she was no longer eating hamburgers. She'd learned about the food groups that day and realized her dinners bore a direct relationship to the cows she saw grazing off Route 9. (She would soon make the connections between lamb/veal, pig/pork chop, and the suddenly obvious chicken/chicken fingers.) From then on, whenever Joe grilled hotdogs, Emily would heap her plate with macaroni salad and let out dying oinks.

Charlotte found the strength of her daughter's convictions enviable. Even admirable. They were also, she secretly believed, a product of her youth. As Emily got older, Charlotte suspected the reality of day-to-day living would dampen her enthusiasm a little, make her more practical, less volatile. More realistic. But until then, Charlotte certainly wasn't going to be the one to do it.

Besides, she was sure Joe had no objections to the alternative learning environment. He was probably okay with it. In favor. Having an ex-husband so "with-it" only accentuated how very much Charlotte was "without-it." Toward the end of their marriage, when Emily was six and seven, Joe managed to absorb all the latest fads and trends in a seemingly unconscious way. Emily would mention a cartoon, or sneaker, or video game, and Joe would know exactly what she was talking about. Charlotte was clueless. (She once pronounced M.C. Hammer "McHammer," thinking they were an Irish rock band.) Now, in such situations, rather than draw attention to how un-hip she was, Charlotte had learned to keep her doubts to herself.

Which is why she hadn't pressed the issue of the school with no report cards. Just like she hadn't let on her true feelings about Emily's tongue ring, or belly ring, or Women's Studies major, or aimless cross-country road trip between her junior and senior years of college. But in June, when Emily called about her new living plans-what Charlotte has since termed the "alternative living arrangement"-she found it impossible to remain her quietly supportive self.

"Walter and I have decided to live together."

It was like a scene from a bad made-for-TV movie: the pivotal moment where the rebellious daughter, chin held high, announces to her conservative parents a decision she knows they won't agree with. Usually the declaration is followed by the parents threatening, the daughter shrieking, possibly the lines "Not while you're living under my roof!" or "I'm eighteen! You don't own me anymore!" and some slamming doors, stone-faced sidekick boyfriends, Harleys gunning ominously in the distance.

In her version, however, Charlotte was cleaning the bathroom. Her forehead was sweaty, the portable phone clutched between her chin and shoulder. Emily was speaking to her from Hartford, where she was living temporarily, subletting an apartment and working at a day camp for inner-city youth. Charlotte hadn't been crazy about the camp plan (Emily was a Wesleyan graduate, after all) and felt a little hurt that she hadn't come home to spend her last few months on Dunleavy Street. But, as soon as she lamented any detail of Emily's summer plans, she reminded herself of the only one that truly mattered: She wasn't spending August in Seattle.

"Living together?" Charlotte had been Windexing the mirror and stopped, blue rivulets running down the glass. "Just the two of you?"

"Four of us. Walter, me, and a couple of friends."

"What friends?"

"Just some Wesleyan people."

"What Wesleyan people?" It was all Charlotte could do to echo her daughter, even though these other people were not, at all, the point.

"Mara and Anthony," Emily says. "I don't think you've met them . . . Ant's the guy who climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. He's really fascinating."

Her words bounced off the tiled walls, as if mocking Charlotte's practical rubber-soled slippers, her bucket of cleaning supplies. Fascinating. She watched as the streams of Windex snagged and merged, like a map of blue veins on the inside of a wrist. Behind them, Charlotte's own blurred reflection stared back at her: faded blue eyes, cheeks flushed and freckled from the summer heat, cropped brown hair she colored dutifully every six weeks. At first glance, she looked younger than she felt. But upon closer inspection, worry lines were rising around her mouth, crow's feet nibbling at the corners of her eyes. Every sleepless night etched her wrinkles deeper, though the change was invisible to the naked eye, like a patch of rust forming imperceptibly under a drip in the sink.

"Mara's cool," Emily went on. "She lived in my dorm."

"Oh?"

"She's Anthony's girlfriend. Well, sort of."

"Oh."

Emily sighed, an amused sigh. "It's fine, Mom."

"Is it?" Charlotte leapt. "It is?"

"It'll be like one big happy family. I promise."

Charlotte felt a twinge between her eyes. Happy family: it sounded so incestuous, so 1960s. She wasn't sure if this casual, communal environment made the living together better or worse. She thought about calling Joe to discuss it, to have one of their rare parental checkpoints. These had occurred a few times over the years: when Emily had mono, when she was applying to colleges, after she pierced her tongue. (Charlotte had regretted that one, after Joe found her concern so amusing.)

But she suspected Joe had no problem with the alternative living arrangement, just as he'd had no objection to the alternative learning environment. After all, he'd set a precedent for it, living with Valerie before they were married. God only knows what kind of example they set during those endless Augusts. Charlotte hated that her ex-husband had the power to make life-altering decisions, set important examples that she could do nothing about. Of all the emotional aftershocks of divorce-loneliness, jealousy, resentment-the worst, the absolute worst, was this lack of control.

"I just-it's just that you're so young, honey." She wanted to sound wise and knowing, but instead felt like she always did when trying to give Emily relationship advice: unqualified. What experience did she have to back her up? A strained marriage, a cold divorce, and fifteen years without a man in her life? "And living together, well . . . that's a big commitment."

"Mom." Emily's tone was matter-of-fact. "We know living together is a big commitment. We're not jumping into this blindly. Walter and I really love each other."

Charlotte was jolted into silence. How could she argue with this? She believed Emily probably was in love with Walter. In fact, it was very possible her twenty-two-year-old daughter knew more about loving a man than she did.

Excerpted from The Hazards of Sleeping Alone © Copyright 2004 by Elise Juska. Reprinted with permission by Downtown Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.