I’m running late. I’m always running late. I used to be a punctual person and I still want to be a punctual person. But with three children, it’s impossible. “No, it’s not,” I argue with myself. “The problem is that you always make the wrong choice. You always decide to do one more thing instead of leaving the house when you should. That’s why you’re always late.” “But if I didn’t have the kids,” I argue back, “there wouldn’t be so many things to do, so many reasons to do one more thing before walking out the door.” It’s an argument I always lose, no matter which side I take.
So I’m driving too fast down a quiet side street. I’m taking a shortcut to avoid having to turn left onto Mass. Ave. in the center of town. Kids are playing in a number of the front yards. I feel a prickle of guilt, knowing I wouldn’t like to see someone driving this fast down my quiet side street. But I don’t slow down. We’re going to be late for karate again. And it’s all my fault. I should have picked up my two older kids from school instead of waiting for them to walk home. But then I would have had to wake up my toddler early from her nap. She would have been incredibly grumpy And I wouldn’t have had time to finish the food I was making for my friend Amy. Actually, not for Amy. The chemo makes her too queasy to eat. But for her husband and kids. It’s not much — a dinner, when they’re dealing with a double mastectomy. But it’s all I can think of to do. So it’s not like I was using my toddler’s nap to do something for myself — to read a book, do my exercises, take a nap. But still I feel guilty.
Now I see, at one of the houses just ahead, a brown labrador retriever playing with the children in the front yard. He’s having a glorious time, chasing a ball, poking his snout under the bushes beside the house, jumping up on the kids. As I watch him, the argument in my head continues. The problem, I have to admit, scolding myself some more, is that even when my older kids got home, I didn’t hustle them and my toddler right into the car. Instead, I decided to do a little more work on the laundry while listening to my oldest tell me about the boy who fell off the monkey bars during recess and broke his wrist. And then I decided to let her stay at home by herself, instead of going to karate with us.
This is what it’s like, mothering children. Always these decisions. Do I put the next load of laundry in before I leave and end up being late for karate, or do I wait until I get home and end up folding the last load at midnight? Do I leave my ten year old daughter home alone so she can do her homework while I take her brother to his class or do I make her come along? Do I call her when I get there to make sure she’s OK or do I not call her so she can feel more independent? And speaking of decisions, when is it OK to read a book, do my exercises, take a nap?
Suddenly, the brown dog is dashing across the street. In a heartbeat, he’s in front of my car. I slam on my brakes and wait for the thud, the sickening thud that will tell me I’m guilty, guilty of driving too fast, not slowing down when I know that I should, leaving too late, not waking up my toddler, not picking up my kids from school, leaving my daughter home alone, not doing more than cooking a dinner, not being the one to have the breast cancer. I imagine the dog flung to the side of the road by the impact of the crash, dead, his brown fur matted with blood and gravel. Or worse, not dead, but hideously injured, quietly whimpering or running away in a delirium of pain. I imagine the children screaming, crying, see a mother like myself come out of one of the houses, thinking, “What now?” I see the look in her eyes as her children run to her, the face of judgement she turns on me . . .
But there’s no thud. I stare in disbelief as the brown dog jumps up on one of the kids in a yard on the other side of the street. He’s made it across completely unscathed. I can’t imagine how this has happened. Did he run under my car? Was he farther in front of me than I thought? For long seconds I sit motionless behind the steering wheel, staring at the dog as he leaps for a frisbee, until my son reminds me that we’re running late.