“Do you remember your first day of school?” I ask her now, flourishing the part of the quilt made of the uniform blouse.

“Sure. My teacher was Miss Robinson, and I carried a Mulan lunch box.” Molly changes lanes and eases past a poky hybrid car. “You put a note in my lunch. I always liked it when you did that.”

I don’t recall the teacher or the lunch box, but I definitely remember the note, the first of many I would tuck into Molly’s lunch over the years. I always tried to write a few words on a paper napkin with a little smiling cartoon mommy, with squiggles to represent my hair, and the message “I ♥ U. Love, Mommy.”

I tried to upgrade my wardrobe for the occasion, wearing slacks, Weejuns and coral lip gloss from a department store counter. I felt important, compelled by mission and duty, as Molly chattered gleefully in the back of my station wagon.

Stopping at the tree-shaded curb of the school, I pretended to be calm and cheerful as I kissed Molly’s cheek, stroked her head and then smilingly waved goodbye. She met up with her friends Amber and Rani. The girls went inside together, giggling and skipping the whole way, into the redbrick institution that suddenly looked huge and forbidding to me.

There was a New Mothers’ coffee in the library. At the meeting, we moms worked out party plans and car pool arrangements with the sober attention of battle commanders. I felt secretly intimidated—not by the working moms in their power suits and high heels. On some level I understood they were as scared and uncertain as I was, even with their advanced degrees and job titles.

No, I was overawed by the stay-at-home moms. They were the gold standard we all aspired to. They seemed so organized and poised, in khakis with earth-tone sweaters looped negligently over their shoulders, datebooks open in front of them, monogrammed pens poised to make notes. Independent yet obviously supported by the unseen infrastructure of husbands and homeowners’ associations, they were eminently comfortable in their own skin.

To this day, I don’t remember driving home after handing my child over to a new phase of life. All I remember is bursting into the house, sitting down at the breakfast counter with the view of the jungle gym Dan had built in the backyard, and shaking with a sense of emptiness I hadn’t expected to feel. Even Hoover, huddled in confusion at my feet, couldn’t cheer me up. But back then, hope had glimmered at the end of the day. Molly would come home, she’d eat pecan sandies and drink a glass of milk while chattering on about kindergarten, and all would be well.

Although years have passed since that bright August morning, I never quite mastered the put-together look or the air of confidence I observed in my peers. I didn’t really fit in with the stay-at-homes, but I wasn’t a career woman, either. A scattershot woman, you might call me, aiming myself in different directions, my only true calling that of loving my family.