“Waffles. They’re yummy!” She turned her round owl-like eyes upon me. “Can he have a bite, Mommy?” As I cut the charred chicken that sat on limp iceberg lettuce. I sensed the test within her words. If I said no, Jordan and his parents would exchange looks that said my mother had infected me, leached the joy out of life, made our household a gloomy puppet regime. Jordan asked me once: “Do you think he’ll self-destruct if he doesn’t have lunch at noon?” And I sort of did; I trusted only my parents to finagle his schedule, for special events like baseball games.
Besides, at every table in the diner, at every diner in the country, kids were sucking down whipped cream (and worse) with grimy spoons. Why should it break my heart?
I kissed his pale palm. “One bite. A special treat; okay, Sam?” A thrill surged up my spine: the elixir of power. But my gut clenched as my son’s lips rounded into a pink oval to accept this rare treat; his pure soul sullied by, I realized too late, the fork she’d been using.
“Maybe you can use a clean utensil?” I asked.
My father-in-law, Harvey, narrowed his ice-blue eyes. “Sammy, Baby,” he chided. “Your Mommy thinks we have syphilis.”
“Jordan loved whipped cream; remember, Sherri?” asked Harvey. “He used to squirt it on chicken fried steak.”
I wanted to laugh until I pictured my mother’s cringe. “No wonder he spends hours on the toilet,” I heard her say. I am proud to think the way she does, electrified to have flaunted my neuroses. And yet to my in-laws I feel like a fraud, too childlike to raise children, and my bond with my own mother seems pathological, a clinically cold comfort.
Now my mother spoons out cottage cheese for Sam’s breakfast, reminding him with fevered enthusiasm how much she loves it, as Maria wipes the counter and everything on it, my iPhone and Sam’s trains, without ever lifting the yellow Scotch Brite sponge. In Spanish, I explain to Maria we’re taking Sam to the doctor.
“La crayola,” she says, pounding her first on the granite island. “El polvo.”
I frown. How can crayons make a child sick? Sam closes his eyes, listless, cheeks flaming in kewpie-doll circles. When my mother picks him up, his face seems to melt into her shoulder. She carries him to the car and I see the chalk markings on the driveway, the crudely-drawn carrots and oranges and bananas with “COOK LOVES VEGGIES, COOK LOVES FRUIT” in massive letters. The pastel chalk-bits clog up the craters in our driveway asphalt.
“We need to get him better before you give birth,” says my mother as I hit upon what la crayola means. “He really didn’t need to go swimming.”
But Jordan and I decided he was fine, hadn’t we, before he jumped into my in-laws’ pool? Or had I merely agreed with Jordan to avoid the cross-examination, his grilling me to a charcoal nub, those laser-sharp looks of disdain and pity? We both labor to please our parents, which means we’ll always hate each other a little bit.
“Shit!” says my mother, and I look up from my wriggling belly to find we’re at a standstill, stuck behind a cavalcade of SUVs and mini-vans.
“The golf tournament is today! Of course! I’m an an idiot!” She smacks her palm to her forehead. From the backseat, Sam murmurs, “Cook? Mommy?” He has fallen asleep, head lolling on his shoulder. We are moored in traffic, my son is desperately ill, my mother is cursing herself, and a spot of pleasure flares through the panic and dread fogging my brain.
The doctor diagnoses an ear infection and prescribed medicine that may cause diarrhea, which yogurt can help offset.
“I’m so glad we love yogurt,” Cook says to Sam on the ride home. Her smile twists into a smirk. “Tell Jordan to pick up the prescription, please. We don’t want to schlep him to CVS, and I need to start dinner. In fact, why don’t you call Sherri and ask her to come take care of Sam?” Jordan is always quick to remind me that Sherri’s ill health means she can’t spend time with Sam when he’s ill.
“That family just doesn’t understand,” my father said once, “the connection between your diet and your bowels.”
“If they were nice to me,” said Mom, “I’d teach them all about that.”
“They should be nice,” said Dad. “They should kiss your feet, Melanie, for giving their grandchildren a fighting chance at good health.” My own stomach churned at his words, like a sinkhole sucking gastric juice. My deepest fear is the dire predictions should come to pass: that my kids will be sickly, plagued with bowel trouble, lazy, and inert. My parents strike fear into my heart, cradling my hands as they cling. Kiss my boo-boo! Save my kids!
Why did I laugh when the flower girl grazed my little boy’s nostrils with her peonies? For Sam, it was like a hit of crack. He ran around all night like a rakish frat boy, his little tuxedo shirt unbuttoned, his bow tie askew. It was adorable. My parents had not made good on their threat to show up in tophat and tails. Life was good. But then he started to cough as I tucked him in. Around midnight he began to choke, to spit up on his soft blue sheets, to cry, “Mommy! Mommy!” I flew to his side, heroine and villain both.
About Melissa Pheterson
