Part-Time Mother, Full-Time Life

Part Time Mother, Full Time Life
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On Monday Betsy came to visit, just as she had promised, and Davey came, too. In the afternoon she went out to play with Susie Crowther, and I fell asleep in the big chair by my desk. The door opening woke me.
“Mom, can you cry because you’re happy?”
“Sure. There’re lots of good reasons to cry. Who’s crying?” Betsy’s fist dug at wet eyes surrounded by darkening red skin. I shifted in the chair to make room and held out my arm. She snuggled nicely in the narrow space, her body warm against mine.
“I just yelled at Mrs. Crowther and she didn’t get mad at me.” She sniffed a giant sniff as her words tumbled out. “Debbie ran home and told her mother that Susie and I wouldn’t play with her, and then Mrs. Crowther yelled at Susie and put her on restriction, and that did it. I told Mrs. Crowther that Debbie had run away from us. That we do ‘clude her and try to play with her. Then Debbie got mad because I was winning at hopscotch…”
I stopped trying to keep track of the sequence of events and listened instead to what my body was saying. Betsy’s warmth warmed me as she continued to sob. Davey came in and sat on the small couch across the room, then moved from the distant couch to the near one, then to the chair opposite mine, asking occasional questions, watching. At last he came and sat on my right foot and then slid up into my lap until the three of us were entwined in a gentle sculpture. Tears became smiles and then laughter.
I am nourished by such moments, such days. Speaking up for my children, watching a daughter find her own courage, a son his—never mind how we do it. The day after Davey and Thomas’s fight, I’d remarked to him, “I was so terribly proud that you stayed and fought.”
He’d looked up from his book. “It was because you were there,” he said.
In those moments, the anguish is gone, every battle with self, father or each other fades, and we are only three warm bodies, lazy in a chair, feeling strong and soft, laughing and talking about nothing in particular.
There is no question, I am happier than I’ve ever been in my whole life.
* * * * *
The phone interrupted my reflections.
“I got your note saying you want the kids from Tuesday to Sunday,” Lowell began. “And it seems almost all right. The kids say they want to watch fireworks with you Wednesday night. Marcy and I want to have a picnic during the day, so I wondered if I might drop them off Wednesday about five instead, and then pick them up Sunday.”
“We have no plan for fireworks,” I began and stopped. “That’s too brief a time. I want them here a lot of days.”
“Well, that presents problems, you know.” His voice became less friendly. “I can’t pay Elena for not working. I can’t just suddenly tell her to go home. She needs the money, you know.”
“That response confuses me every time you give it,” I said, realizing that he’d said it before. “I can’t understand how you can use paying Elena to stop the children from being with me.”
“I’m not using Elena for anything. I just can’t suddenly tell her to go home just because you decide you want the children.”
“He makes me sound so unreasonable,” I thought, an inner tumbleweed whirling in place. “He can’t pay Elena for not working. Of course not. He’s equating paying the housekeeper with the children’s need to be with their mother.”
I wish I’d gotten hold of that sooner.
My feet tingle and the muscles from my heels up to my neck clench like a black shadow stuck to me. I turn to stone, wanting to stamp my feet and yell. He makes it sound as though I want the children capriciously, that I don’t consider his plans. In spite of myself, I feel guilty and inconsiderate, as if I have no right to ask for the children at all.
I sense that, like my parents, he punishes me where I am most vulnerable.
Slowly his voice cut through the chaos in my head, “…so I think it would be best for everybody if they came over on Wednesday about five and I’ll pick them up Sunday.”
“You cannot say what is best for others unless they have authorized you to speak for them. I haven’t and neither have they. I am the only person who can tell you what is best for me.”
“And I don’t know at all,” I thought. I cannot share my confusion with him. He’ll mistake confusion for weakness and take over.
“And I am saying that’s not a good plan for me.”
“All right,” he said after a silence. “I am listening.”
“I wish I could believe that. Well, why would you say it if you didn’t mean it? I just don’t know how to talk with you and retain any integrity at all.”
Words poured out, as I tried to figure out what I wanted and to keep him silent until I knew. “Wednesday to Sunday will not do. I want them to come on Friday and stay through Friday.”
“You mean not come until next Friday, after the Fourth?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ll talk it over with them and let you know.”
I remembered his voice a while back asking harshly, “What are parents for, if not to make decisions for the children?”
“We seem to be moving away from that one,” I thought victoriously, “no matter how awkwardly I express myself.”
Aloud I said, “Then ask one of them to call me. I haven’t discussed this with them and it’s not a decision until they have talked with me.”
I could not let go of it. I am determined to strip from him any power that he may have over the children or me.
The thought comes that he has none unless I give it, but I can’t deal with that yet.
I’m locked into proving something that I can’t articulate even to myself.