My aunt Cathie, who is about to turn eighty, finally got married ten years ago. I helped plan her wedding, which could’ve been its own reality TV show, Becoming a First-Time Bride at Seventy. The man she was marrying was called Ed. What she said to me then is that she finally decided to stop dating jerks. “I just decided to go for a nice guy,” she said, as if it were the simplest decision in the world. 

The way you play Monster Prom is to choose a location at Monster High—the gym, the cafeteria, the library, the bathroom, the classroom, or outside—and then interact with your peers in a way that will or will not result in a prom date with the monster of your choice. It’s trickier than I thought it would be. First, we have to decide who will go first, Brian or Amira. To determine this, the computer prompts us to “Think of something cool.” Isaac says, “Ice.” I say, “Maxine Waters.” 

Next, the computer asks, “Which of these two things would make more sense as sold in a Japanese vending machine?” While I love the idea of Maxine Waters, dispensed via thousands of vending machines, I have to concede the first turn to Isaac. He chooses to head to the gym. While there, he rallies his dodgeball team to victory and wins points for charm and boldness. 

The thing is, Cathie was never really all that interested in becoming a bride, despite the worry and anxiety of my grandparents, who didn’t know what to do with an unmarried daughter. It’s not like she never had relationships; she had John the computer programmer and Jim the cartoonist and a foodie named Ed, who is now called “The Previous Ed.” It’s just that she was more focused on her career as a programmer, leading the way as a woman in tech, founding the San Francisco chapter of Women in Computing. She was the first woman I knew who wore a pantsuit, the first woman to point out to me that pockets are a feminist issue.

On our second round of Monster Prom, we have to choose who will go first again. This time we are asked to think of a celebrity. I opt for Tom Hanks. Isaac picks Matt Damon. The next question is “Who would be more likely to lead the survival team during the zombie apocalypse?” This one is tough. We decide on Tom Hanks, so it’s my turn to go first this time. I choose the library.

Cathie and my mom have another sister, Theo. She worked in a school library, and she was the first person I knew with a master’s degree. Cathie, my mom, and Theo all had early subscriptions to Ms. magazine. Theo also had a fat Maine Coon cat named after female tennis star Billie Jean King, and she was the one who gave me my first 45 record, Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.” That gift backfired a bit, though, because I was only five and couldn’t understand the lyrics. I didn’t know what the word “invincible” meant. Instead, I heard  “I am strong. I am invisible.”

Cathie started dating the current Ed shortly after she turned sixty. Twenty years later—ten of them married years—and they are still totally in love. Almost every day, Ed announces that it’s their anniversary. He’ll say, “It’s our 10-year, 28-day, and 6-hour anniversary” or “It’s the 20-year, 17-day, and 3-hour anniversary of our first date.” Ed is into math. And physics. And computers. That’s how they met, as computer programmers working on updating code for Y2K, trying to stave off the threatened apocalypse.

We go through several more Monster Prom opening rounds. First turns are decided based on which one of us would make a better president and which one of us would survive longer in the apocalypse. We decide that Isaac would survive longer in the apocalypse and I would make a better president. That last part is not true, but he is being kind to me, ignoring the fact that while he is firm and decisive, I tend to agonize over even the smallest decisions. He’s honoring my ability to keep our family more or less on track, despite my anxiety about all the details.

The peer interactions are getting tougher. And increasingly sexual. Isaac is completely comfortable discussing sex around me, which I find both odd and a confirmation that I passed a tricky parenting test. In his attempts to woo Polly, though, he is going for the more romantic answers, the safer ones. I try to get him to take a few risks with the more risqué replies. The few times he does this, he gains points for fun, smarts, charm, and boldness.

Meanwhile, I am losing interest in the werewolf and, almost without realizing it, find myself trying to seduce a Gorgon called Vera. She has more going on in the smarts department. But I make a misstep by trying to steer her away from a life of crime, a safe bet that leaves her bored. Then I miscalculate again and cause her to lose money in the stock market. Things are not going well. 

I wonder what sort of example I’m setting for Isaac in real life. Our extended family has always tended toward matriarchy, the women living well into their nineties, making all the key decisions, not afraid to be alone. Post-breakup, Isaac’s father lives in the guest room at the other end of the hall, sometimes disappearing for days or weeks at a time, while I hold down the fort, putting my own romantic life on hold until Isaac heads off for college. I don’t want to expose him to the unstable cast of characters my brother and I were exposed to after our parents’ divorce. 

The Monster Prom characters are unusually good-looking and have stylish wardrobes. Vera has snakes for hair.

Back when Isaac was small and his father and I were still duking it out in the Maine family court system, I made the mistake of letting my guard down. I let a man move in with us, a man with a boat and a trust fund and a private island in Casco Bay. I wanted a layer of protection from the lawyers and the judges; I wanted a safety net. So, I ignored the fact that he didn’t believe children’s artwork should be hung on the walls, that he drove a gas-guzzling car with a radio sometimes tuned to Rush Limbaugh. Luckily, Isaac doesn’t remember that guy, but it’s always in the back of my mind what a close call that was.  

I watch Isaac now, leaning toward the computer screen, blond hair flopping into his eyes, and wonder what will happen next: who he will choose, how he will decide. How nice it would be if first love worked for him, if he could somehow undo the patterns of his parents, his grandparents. 

Now monster prom day arrives, and we have to decide who to ask. I’m still torn. Werewolf or Vera? I choose Vera. Isaac sticks with Polly. We are both rejected. We have no dates for the prom. But that’s OK, because for now, we’re in this together. Soon, I’ll have to let go, let him fly on his own, face his own heartbreak or triumphs. I’ll have to navigate it all for myself again, too. Or not. Maybe I’ll follow the lead of other women in my family and travel solo for a while longer. 

We decide to opt out of a second game of Monster Prom. We’ll eat ice cream instead. I pad into the kitchen, where my brother and I used to stand on stools stirring the summer jam as it simmered on the old gas stove, our freshly picked blackberries and blueberries thickening themselves for morning toast, back when our parents were still married, back when the four of us would eat at the little round table together.

I set two matching cereal bowls on the counter, scoop them full of Round Top vanilla, and carry them to the couch. I hold my spoon up toward Isaac’s and he taps it with a little clink, a little “cheers,” a toast to our defeat, or maybe to a future of getting it right.