Mother's Day Confession

Greetings and Happy Mother’s Day, Frog Troublers! Would you like to hear about the worst thing I’ve done in my 12 1/2 years of being a mom?

Of course you do! Other people’s mistakes are interesting, plus finding out what other people consider “really bad” can be illuminating about our own worst things. If you think you’re going to hear about me returning library books late (I always do that) or missing teacher appreciation week (that was last week, but we’re gonna pretend it’s this week), you are wrong wrong wrong.

If this were a normal and sensible publication instead of a thing I think about all week, wake up early every Sunday to work on, and then promptly abandon all promotion for, I would tease the reveal then make this for paid subscribers only. Or something like that. So I will simply say:

Okay, here goes. I told one friend about this when it happened, and she was… shocked into silence. This person is not a judgmental scold (I am not friends with people like that) but a woman who literally could not believe what I am about to tell you.

It starts kind of sweet. It was December, a chilly but not super-cold day, and I was done with school for the semester. I decided to meet the girls at the bottom of the driveway so we could go book-shopping at McIntyre’s Books. I had baked some chocolate banana bread and had two slices wrapped in paper towels.

Ms. Peele’s bus pulled up at 3:55, as usual. Ms. Peele waved, Harriet bounded off the bus, and Bea trudged down the steps with the weight of middle school on her: trumpet case, heavy backpack, binder of homework that doesn’t fit into the backpack. Once off the bus she handed the trumpet to Harriet, who came over to my window and said what she always says when I meet them with the car: “I didn’t know you’d be here!” Bea sank, relieved, into the front seat, and Harriet loaded the trumpet into the back seat.

I’d been texting my brother while I waited. I finished the last text (we were fighting! Not a good thing to do on text!) greeted the girls, stashed my phone, and pulled out onto Chicken Bridge Road. Bea told me about her day, and once we were on River Road I remembered the banana bread, which was stashed in the front console. “Ooh, chocolate,” Bea said as I handed her a slice (she likes banana only when chocolate is involved). I took Harriet’s slice, wrapped in its gooey paper towel, and held it back to her. She didn’t take it, so I said, “Harriet, take the bread!”

Bea turned around. “Harriet’s not there!” she gasped.

I looked in the rearview and confirmed: empty. Harriet had put the trumpet on the seat, closed the door, and then I’d driven away thinking she was inside. The next three minutes were some of the most heart-poundingly frightening I can remember. We were not even on our road. We were nearly two miles away, readers. I screeched the car around and raced down River Road, rumbled down Medina Lane, swung left onto Chicken Bridge. Somehow I thought Harriet would still be standing there, waiting as if for the bus, but the driveway was empty. We made it up the driveway, parked, and flew into the house.

There was Harriet, coat off, backpack hung on its hook. I scooped her up, weak with relief. She looked… fine? Not even tear-stained? I told her how sorry I was and asked her what she did when I drove away. “I waved my coat, then I turned around and walked up the driveway. I was gonna go to Jaimee and Josh’s.”

“You didn’t cry?”

“Oh, I cried at first. But then I stopped.”

We didn’t make it to the bookstore that day. We ate some banana bread. I don’t remember what else we did, but Harriet was okay.

My lessons: kids are resilient, good neighbors are the best, and it’s normal to make mistakes as a mom. Moms do a lot, mostly way too much in fact.

That doesn’t mean I don’t still shudder when I think of the empty back seat!

One of my bigger fears is that I will neglect one daughter for the other, or not be the same mom I am to Harriet that I was to Bea when she was the same age. I am so much older, and life in our country is so much harder.

When I feel that way I remember that life is lived day by day, and there are seasons for everything. Last night, Bea went to a play with some friends and Harriet and I decided to get a cheese-and-spinach pizza (Capp’s is our favorite) and some lemonade. We took it to the river, where we saw:

Black and yellow swallowtail butterflies

Bald eagles

Canada geese

A great blue heron

and…

Harriet discovered a turtle nest, dug out of the clay soil, the turtles all hatched and gone! It was right next to the river, the leathery white shells all curled into what looked from a distance like litter:

Think of those babies—Eastern river cooters? Yellow-bellied sliders? Snappers?—cutting the shell with their egg teeth, then slipping down the banks into the water, which our neighbor David remembers once running all the colors of the dumped textile dyes but now runs, most days, clean enough the see the bottom.

Resilience!

We are resilient, too, Frog Troublers, and we will get through this time, by which I mean the ridiculous Virginia decision that just confirmed that we are playing by two different sets of rules. Thank you to Mamie and her friends, who canvassed every weekend for months because they love all the things Republicans hate: healthcare for all, good public education, clean water and air, reproductive freedom, and a helping hand to moms and kids who need it, which is basically all the moms, all the kids.

How are you spending Mother’s Day? We are headed to a Bulls game with our friends. The baby wrens fledged yesterday. Harriet and I are thinking of doing a weekly river picnic if you ever want to join.

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