The next morning, I was working from home until lunch time and I had both the boys with me.  Nora had felt well enough to go to school.  I had Francisco on my hip as I tried to work.  He was being awfully clingy this morning.  Any time I set him down, he would cry.  It made getting any work done pretty challenging.

I sat at the table with Francisco in my lap, and Sebastian was off somewhere talking to himself.  The kid needed a constant audience.  As I was on the phone, he came running up to me with a couple little notebooks he'd found somewhere.  I didn't recognize them, but I thought they were probably mine, being the writer in the family.

I quickly opened one up, expecting to see my sloppy chicken scratch, but I found loopy, neat handwriting.  It wasn't Vanessa's.  I realized the notebooks must belong to Nora.  I didn't want to invade her privacy, but I was curious.  They weren't diaries; it was just random writings.  I thumbed through a couple of pages, finding she was mostly writing poetry.  Some of it rhymed, some of it didn't.  It was really good, especially for a kid.

I hung up the phone after finishing the conversation.  "Sebastian, where'd you find these?"

"Under Nora's pillow," he told me.

"Buddy, it's not polite to go through other people's stuff.  Can you put these back where you found them, please?"

I handed them back and Sebastian took off running towards her bedroom.  Nora was a writer, like me.  I wanted to talk with her about it, but wasn't sure how to bring it up without her knowing someone was going through her stuff.  If she was really into writing, this could be a way for us to really bond.  I tried to think of a way to bring it up casually.

When Nora got home that evening, she was sweaty and looking happy from skateboarding.  She threw her stuff in her bedroom and hit the shower.  When she finished, she came out to the couch and turned on MTV.  I joined her, holding Francisco in my lap.

"So, how's English class going?" I asked her.

"Fine.  Why?"  She crunched a chip in her mouth.

"No reason.  I know you like reading," I told her.  "Do you do much writing in class?"

"Well, yeah, it's English," she pointed out.

"And do you like writing as well?" I prompted her.

"Yeah," she answered simply, popping another chip.

"Done any poetry?"

"Nope," she said, her eyes on the drama on the screen.

"Do you ever write for fun?"

She shrugged.  "Sometimes."

I nodded.  "Let me know if you want help," I offered.  "Or if you want me to take a look at your stuff.  I did win the Pulitzer."

I wasn't above dropping the P-word when it suited me.

"Okay.  Thanks," she said dismissively, unimpressed by my Pulitzer, which hung proudly in my office.  I shouldn't have been surprised that my teenage daughter didn't want to show me her writing.  It could be pretty private.  Hopefully she would open up to me a little more.  Maybe I could show her some of my stuff.

"Well I'm going to start dinner," I announced and took the chips out of her hands.  She protested, looking at me like I was evil.  She kicked me in the hip as I walked by.

After dinner, Nora sat at the kitchen table with my laptop.  She had her notebook out, pencil ready, but didn't seem to be writing anything down.  Her frown on her face gave away her frustration.

"You okay, Nora?" I asked her from the couch.

"I don't get this," she admitted, staring at the screen.  I walked over and leaned over.  "We're supposed to cite our sources for this project, but I still don't get how to do it."

I pulled up a chair next to her and read the directions on her assignment page.  They needed to be formatted in APA style.  "Let me show you a little trick I learned," I said as my fingers found the keyboard.  I pulled up a website, easybib.com. 

"All you have to do is enter the information, and it formats it for you," I told her, checking her first source.  I showed her how to enter the information into the fields, then click generate.  "And voila!  A perfectly formatted APA citation."

"Thanks!" She said, looking relieved.

"You bet," I told her.  "Let me know if you need anything else."

She seemed to be able to handle everything else, so I left her be.  I was impressed with the way she was keeping up with Hunter's workload.  I remember from my time there it could be very demanding.  Her grades were okay; not the greatest.  But it took time to adjust to the rigor.  She was pulling mostly B's and C's, so I wasn't going to complain.

She went to bed soon after, but reappeared a few moments later, carrying the notebooks Sebastian had found earlier.

"Was someone in my room?" She asked suspiciously.

"Yeah, sorry, Sebastian was wandering around this morning and he found those," I told her.  "I told him to put them back where he found them."

"Did anyone read them?"

I didn't want to lie to her.  I needed her to trust me.  "I glanced at them," I admitted.  "They're really good."

"You went through my stuff?!" She was upset.  "You had no right!"

I stood up, feeling better.  "Nora, I'm sorry.  You're right.  I never should have looked through them.  I was curious because I'm a writer.  Please don't be upset."

"Would you want me looking through your private stuff?" She accused.

"No," I said, but then got an idea.  "But actually...do you want to look at some of my stuff?  I haven't shown anyone else.  Not even Vanessa."

She paused, considering, then nodded her head.  I went to my room and fished out a thick stack of my ramblings.  I brought them to the kitchen table and spread them out. 

"When I can't sleep, I write," I told her, opening up my most recent one.  "There's no theme to them, really.  Just random thoughts."

She thumbed through my work, sloppy as all get-out.  I was not known for my penmanship.

"You can borrow them," I offered.  "Let me know what you think."

Wordlessly, she picked up the stack and took them to her room.  I grinned, thinking we had finally found a connection.  Her other interests – skateboarding and MTV, weren't really up my alley.  Writing, though.  That was my jam, obviously.

As I passed by her door on the way to bed, I saw her sitting up, cross-legged, reading my notebooks.