The 48-Hour Vacation

Two days of respite, one early pickup, and a rooftop pool I will never forget.

Maya was supposed to stay at camp for a week.

She made it 48 hours.

I could tell this story as a sad one, and parts of it were sad. But honestly? Those 48 hours were lovely.

Not spa-weekend-in-Sedona lovely. More like “I ate an entire meal without supervising anyone else’s food” lovely.

In our family, we take our luxury where we can get it. Sometimes luxury is a massage and sometimes it’s not knowing the exact location of every bread basket in the building.

Even better, those 48 hours gave me something I did not realize I needed, time alone with Mallory, my youngest, before she leaves for college.

Maya was going to a camp for people with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) in San Antonio. My hope was simple. I wanted her to have fun, and I wanted her to be around people who understood her and people who were like her. There are not many places in the world where Maya can walk in without requiring a lengthy explanation, a warning label, and a mother hovering nearby doing live translation of her needs.

I also hoped camp would give me a break. And maybe even more importantly, I hoped it would give me time with Mallory.

As Mallory is leaving for college in the fall, this would be one of our last chances for a few uninterrupted days before everything changes again. I just wanted time with her. Not because I don’t love Maya, of course I love Maya. But loving someone and managing someone are not the same thing, even though mothers are often expected to pretend they are.

When I dropped Maya off, she seemed excited. Honestly, she seemed more than happy to see me leave, which is both exactly what you want and mildly insulting.

I had worried ahead of time, because worrying is one of my unpaid part-time jobs. But I also thought, if anyone can handle Maya, it will be these people. They know PWS. They understand the food issues, the anxiety, the rigidity, the regulation problems, and the way one small discomfort can become everyone’s afternoon.

So I left.

Then Mallory and I went to the store and bought snacks.

Not sensible snacks. Not “we are nourishing our bodies” snacks. We bought the kind of snacks that would require a family meeting in our house.

Then we went to the pool like two women who had just been released from a committee meeting that had lasted approximately twenty-one years.

For the next 48 hours, Mallory and I did ordinary things that felt almost suspiciously easy.

We ate when we were hungry and ordered what sounded good and swam on the hotel rooftop. We had drinks at the rooftop bar, mine with alcohol and hers with enough fruit and sparkle to qualify as vacation in a glass. We saw the Alamo. We went on a ghost tour, because apparently, when given a brief window of respite, I chose to spend part of it investigating people who were even less available than I was.

None of it was fancy.

That was the point.

I did not have to argue about where we were going to eat or have to manage Maya’s anxiety about restaurant food. I did not have to eat when Maya ate and I could eat whenever and whatever I wanted.

The first time I noticed my body had truly relaxed was in the pool.

It was a hot summer night, but there was a breeze. Mallory and I were the only ones swimming, high above the city, with the lights around us and the water moving gently. For a few minutes, it felt like we were the only two people in the world.

That almost never happens.

But that night, in the pool, there was nothing to solve.

And that is when I realized Mallory needed the break, too.

That part can get lost. Siblings live inside the same family system. They may not carry the same responsibilities, but they feel the constant adjustments, and they know when attention gets pulled in one direction again and again and again.

For 48 hours, Mallory did not have to share the moment with Maya’s needs.

Neither did I.

I felt guilty enjoying that, but I also enjoyed it.

Both things are true, and caregiving is full of these annoying little emotional two-for-ones.

Then the call came.

I had just gotten back from the pool when camp called and said Maya was having a hard time and wanted me to pick her up.

My first thought was not wise or poetic. It was: Oh no, here it comes.

My body reacted before my brain had time to organize itself. I felt that familiar shift from relaxed person to problem-solving, anxious mother. One minute I was still carrying pool water and rooftop breeze, and the next minute I was back on duty, because apparently my nervous system does not believe in paid time off.

I felt embarrassed, defensive, sad, and irritated. There was like a whole emotional charcuterie board going on in my brain.

Mallory was disappointed, too. But she also said something close to, “Yeah, I figured this would happen.”

And honestly, part of me had figured it, too.

Maya was getting a cold and did not feel well, and with Maya, even slight discomfort can throw off her ability to regulate. When her body feels wrong, she cannot always explain or manage it. Sometimes her behavior explains it for her.

When I picked her up, she was happy to see me.

The first thing she said was, “I’m not feeling well.”

She also said she was sorry.

And there it was: my daughter, sick and dysregulated and glad to see me. My break, over. My heart, doing that irritating thing where it can be disappointing for me and tender toward her at the exact same time.

But I do not want people to read this and only feel sorry for us.

Because that’s not the whole story.

The whole story is that Mallory and I got 48 hours together before she leaves for college.

Some families bring home souvenirs. We brought home Maya, a mild cold, and a renewed appreciation for rooftop pools.

If you’re wondering how a mild cold can end a camp week, PWSA USA can explain: Prader-Willi Syndrome Association