Chapter One
Brooke: Shattered
It started that day with just the normal levels of my mother driving me crazy. Which, don’t get me wrong, is plenty bad enough. And some leftover feelings from the odd conversation I’d had with the young woman at my daughter’s new day care might have factored in.
I’d picked Etta up at day care after my work, at about five thirty, and it was the first time I’d seen the place. It was only my baby’s third day there.
My mother had been taking her in and picking her up, at least for the first two and a half days. But then she’d started complaining that it was too much for her “old bones.”
I guess it sounds strange that I hadn’t checked the place out first with my own eyes. But I was dealing with a stress fracture to my psyche, thanks to my mother, that sprang up midweek. And three entirely unrelated people had recommended this as the best place in the city. And my phone and internet experience with them was stellar. Also, my mother would have been the first to point it out if the place wasn’t up to snuff. It’s not like me to fall back on her judgment. But if there’s one thing I can trust her to do, it’s judge.
The yard of the place was on the side of a hill, shaded by trees. Terraced, so the kids had nice flat areas to play, with steps in between. On different levels I saw giant sandbox complexes, swing sets, riding toys. A building pad where two boys were constructing a small city of giant blocks.
It was late in the season, so nearly dark outside, a heavy dusk, but the yard was well lit.
My eyes flew directly to my daughter. She was sitting on one of the riding toys, a bright red plastic horse with a black “flowing” plastic mane. It wasn’t a rocking horse, exactly. It was attached by springs to a solid metal frame. It had handhold pegs below each ear, and nice wide platforms for little feet where the stirrups would be. She could bounce up and down on it, or rock it back and forth just a few inches, imitating the gait of a galloping horse.
Etta was doing the latter.
I had dressed her that morning in red tights—almost exactly the color of her horse—and a striped tunic. A light wind was blowing the curly brown hair off her face. And she was lost in utter concentration. She hadn’t even noticed me yet. I wondered how real the ride felt in her head. If her horse was galloping along a sandy beach or down a grassy hillside.
She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. But I did anyway. In fact, I couldn’t stop.
The young staff member came up behind me. I didn’t notice her until she spoke, so it startled me a little.
“I like the way you look at her,” she said.
I smiled a little. At least, I think I smiled. I meant to. I said, “Don’t all mothers look at their kids that way?”
“Ha!” she said. “I wish.”
Then we watched the girl in perfect silence for a time.
“Etta is very attached to the bouncy horse,” she said. “Almost to the point where it’s become a problem for her. It’s very hard for her to let the other kids take their turn. The good news is, she will. She’s not the least bit bullying or unfair about it. But it hurts her. You can tell. She mopes. She seems brokenhearted.”
“Oh good heavens,” I said, “I’ll end up having to buy her a pony. Number three hundred and thirty-four on the list of things I want for her but can’t afford.”
She laughed. But it hadn’t really been a joke. It had been a genuine worry about the future.
“She did very well with her big-girl pull-up pants and the potty today. No accidents.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“We were glad to see you come in instead of your mother.” That just sat in the air for a moment. Awkwardly, like a thing looking for a place to hide. I could feel that it had been a mistake on her part. A slip that she was now inwardly scrambling to cover. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”
“Not really,” I said. “It sounded about right to me.”
Despite my dismissal of her words, it was an odd thing for a woman at a day care center to say. Then again, you never know what a person might say. People step over lines of propriety every day.
“I didn’t mean to . . .”
“Look. I know my mother. And now so do you. It’s actually a relief to me when other people see the problems, too. Makes me feel a little tiny bit vindicated. I’m not proud of that, but it’s true.”
“She just seems to have a big cloud of negativity surrounding her. And that’s hard on a kid.”
“Tell me about it,” I said.
She took a moment to appear deeply embarrassed before speaking.
“Right. Sorry. You grew up with her. But it’s good that you seem to be more positive. That’s all I meant to say.”
“Well, you know how it is. We either grow up to be our mother or we make a solemn vow to the universe to be her polar opposite. Doesn’t work every minute of every day, though.”
Etta noticed me for the first time. Her face lit up. But she didn’t run to me. Just waved with vast enthusiasm and went back to riding her horse. More stridently, though, as if riding took on a whole new meaning with me watching.
“I can’t tell you how hard it’s been,” I said, “going back to living in her house. After the divorce my finances had me over a barrel. But I’ve been watching how my mother behaves around Etta and how it affects her. And this week I just got to a breaking point with it and put her in day care. But I’m creating a vicious cycle, because my salary doesn’t cover much more than the day care. So I’m not entirely sure how to break this cycle I’ve gotten myself into.” I glanced at the woman’s face and wondered what she was thinking. I regretted going into such detail. “I’m sorry,” I said. “This is more than you needed to know.”
“No, it’s okay. I must admit, I wondered.”
She walked up the steps to the second terraced level, where Ella rode her bright red steed.
She tried to gently steer the girl off the horse, but Ella only fussed, just at the edge of a tantrum. She was clearly tired, which didn’t help.
I walked up to them, thinking I could do better.
“Honey,” I said. “We need to go home to Grandma’s.”
Then I regretted bringing up Grandma. Who would want to go home to that? Even a two-year-old knows better than to want that. Hell, a two-year-old probably knows better than anybody.
“Horsey,” she said, and started to cry.
“Honey, we’ll see the horsey again tomorrow. I promise.”
I shouldn’t have promised.
Be careful what you promise your kids. We ask them to believe that the world is a deeply predictable place, and you can always know where you’ll be tomorrow. But how sure are we?
We were closed into our room as a way of steering clear of my mother.
She had the TV on far too loud. She doesn’t have trouble with her hearing. I have no idea what she thinks she’s doing with that—what need it fills in her. My personal theory? I think she’s trying to drive all the thoughts out of her head. Keep her own mind at bay. Then again, it’s just a theory.
As though that din weren’t bad enough, she kept yelling in to where Etta and I were hiding in our room. And of course she had to shout at the top of her lungs to be heard over the blare of the TV.