This weekend is the junior prom, and I only have one junior.

Because my books usually are published in May, on the night my son Martin steps out with his girlfriend, I won't be among the proud parents. Marty's gal pal, Elizabeth, and her twin, Adam, have also been named to prom court. I hope one of them is crowned royalty, and I'm so proud of them all. They're good students and good kids.

And me? I'll be one a plane to somewhere, and my whole stomach will be filled with longing.

This is the real price (not the creative pressure to do it right for once, the time stress, not the shredded nerves, anticipation of good reviews, horror at bad ones, the negotiations) that we pay in this work. The real price is the absence from the events that mark the milestones of our lives, because they mark our children's lives. I'll miss my tiny first-grade Mia reading the "Big Welcome" to the first-grade play, "Tiki Tiki Tembo," and I'll miss my college son's finals week and the high school variety show, where Marty will sing (and no one but a few of his school friends know he CAN sing, and how beautifully). He'll sing the old song from 'Camelot,' "If Ever I Would Leave You." And I'll have left him, that night, too. Friends will be there. I hope his dad will be there. I know his brother will.

But not I.

I'll count on those marvels of technology -- cell phones that send pictures, digital cameras. Several hours later, on prom night, I'll see images.

But it won't be the same as helping my boy adjust the orchid on his lapel, or seeing his gal pal shining with her long dark hair and her pretty cream gown. I won't see my young man in his first tuxedo, as I saw his older brother.

Marty knows he won't be prom king. He's not THE popular kid. But because he's genuinely friendly, to all types of kids ("Even the kids who scare me," he says, "So that if they get depressed and decide to shoot everybody, maybe I can talk them out of it.") he is a kid who has a great many buddies, and high school, which for me and for my two older children was a savannah on which we were prey animals, has been a garden for him.

I know you don't care about my kid, or prom night, or any of this. I know that going out and meeting my readers and hoping that 'Cage of Stars' will live up to its promise is important: It's supporting my family and supporting something about which I care deeply, deeply.

But wherever my head and my smile is, come Saturday night, my heart will be in a gym in a little town in southwestern Wisconsin, when the Grand March begins. I'll see in my mind Marty's goofy smile -- we tell him, "You've got a smile you can see a mile..." -- and just as I tuck the others in, mentally, each night I'm away, I'll be clapping for him and kissing him on the cheek.

Jackie