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Miranda is not one to pry or meddle in her children’s lives. She’s raised them to be independent, responsible individuals, and she trusts them to make good decisions about how they spend their time. She’d largely parented them in a very similar way that Esther and Jakub had raised her—with open communication and a fairly long leash for making mistakes and learning from them and discussing problems, but of course the internet was not an issue back then.
She’s been aware that Caroline has been an active blogger and fanfiction writer for years and has heard about various misadventures in this realm over the dinner table many times. She’s never sought out firsthand knowledge of this aspect of Caroline’s life because it seems like rather an overreach, like reading someone’s diary. Well. It is a public diary, but she’s not in the demographic for the diary.
It just so happens that Caroline’s laptop had crashed on a Monday evening just as she’d been finishing an essay that was due the next day. Luckily, she’d saved it on a USB, and Miranda had relinquished her infrequently used personal laptop until Megan could pick up a new one for Caroline, which had taken longer than expected because of how busy they’d been at work and how unexpectedly picky Megan was about quality and speed and RAMs and things.
It’s at least a full month later that Miranda opens her computer intending to scroll through some old photo albums. An Internet Explorer browser is open with several tabs: one is Caroline’s school email, one is the Wikipedia page for Sam Shepherd, three are JSTOR articles analyzing Buried Child, one is thesaurus.com, one is a tumblr dashboard logged in as MrsLee95, and the last one is a forum or message board or something called FeVeR that has the feel of a ‘90s AOL chatroom even though the timestamps on the interactions are current.
There is a spirited debate occurring between username SweetLorraine94 and MrsLee95 where the last message from SweetLorraine94 from two minutes ago is
Kys. You stupid cunt.
Miranda blinks.
Presumably, MrsLee95 is her sweet daughter, who should not be being called a stupid cunt or being told to kill herself until at least she’s of legal drinking age. Ideally, feminist utopianally, never, of course, but Miranda’s a realist. Why in the wide, wide world of sports, as her wife would say, would these insults have been hurled at Caroline?
She’s not snooping. This is public information left open on her personal computer. And why shouldn’t she be invested in whatever this little feud is that might potentially harm her minor child?
She does not scroll up to figure out what precipitated this, and she does not click over to the tumblr page. She texts Caroline:
Are you being cyber bullied? And if so, do you need extra supports?
Caroline descends the stairs, her brow scrunched, and joins Miranda in the den, says,
“What are you talking about, Mom?”
“These tabs you left open when you were writing your essay a while back,” Miranda says, turning the laptop around on her thighs to show her.
Caroline laughs, says,
“Oh, that.”
“Well?” Miranda says.
“Not a big deal.”
Miranda raises an eyebrow in question.
“It’s a long story that’s really lame,” Caroline says.
Miranda drums her fingers on the arm of the divan, says,
“You’re under no obligation to tell me, but I do have the time.”
Caroline runs a hand through her hair and crosses to the divan, plops onto it, launches in:
“Ok, so, on FVR, Violet Lee’s mayor character doesn’t actually have a name. She’s just The Mayor. But there’s a fanfic that names her Lorrie Hendrix that’s really popular even though it sucks to the max, like objectively. It is not good. The characterizations are very like middle school. Totally dumb interactions. Anyway, it’s accepted as canon, and most of the fandom drools over it. I don’t, though. So I get into fights online sometimes. Nothingburger, really.”
“So you’re not being cyber bullied?” Miranda says.
“Technically, yes. But I don’t care. I mean, I love that you’re worried about me, but this whole thing is not really affecting me. Who cares about what these bozos say to me?”
Miranda laughs, says,
“Is that my influence or your step daddy’s?”
“Six to one half dozen to the other,” Caroline says.