Mom

 

Jennifer wears sunglasses when there is no need. She dresses her daughter in happy brights and is genuinely shocked when Maddy (for Madison, not Madeline), whose every interrupting exclamation begins with a shrill, “You know what?” comes home from her first day of kindergarten in tears because a boy told her she was annoying.

“It’s just that nobody’s ever teased Maddy before,” she tells Henry’s mother, with whom she carpools.

In the car, Maddy bounces her legs. She’s wearing summer flower print tights, a white and black patterned skirt and a pink puffy coat with fake fur around the collar. A white hat with a snowball sits perched upon her unruly pigtails.

She greets Henry in a nasal voice while clapping her hands together. “Hi Maddy,” he answers, not looking at her, and climbs into his booster chair. Wearing skinny black jeans and a red hooded sweatshirt under an army-evoking green cotton jacket with patches sewn onto the sleeves , he is considerably taller than Maddy, and although in Maddy’s class, he is sometimes mistaken for a first or second grader. Jennifer pulls out and turns on the radio.

“You know what?” Maddy tells Henry, “I was out sick. I missed two” – and she indicates with her fingers – “days of school. My mommy let me watch a LOT of TV, and I did my homework for the WHOLE week.”

She pauses to see if Henry was listening. He is looking at her politely, his lips pressed together. She delivers her finale. “Did you miss me?”

Jennifer looks in the rear view mirror at the children. Through her amber-colored lenses, she can see Henry open his hands up in surprise and address Maddy in a tone which sends a mini-rage down the spine of her back. “You don’t ask people for compliments, Maddy,” he said. “If I missed you, I would tell you. But you don’t just walk around asking people if they missed you.”

He crosses his arms triumphantly, point of etiquette made. Jennifer thinks it looks like he’s waiting for a medal. When the light turns green, she guns the minivan. Henry’s body jerks back slightly.

They arrive at school a few minutes early and go to the playground. Henry runs off to the swings where Ian and Oscar are already playing. Maddy hangs upside down on a climbing bar and Jennifer watches from the fence where the parents are in little groups, balancing steaming paper Starbucks cups and colorful Target lunchboxes.

“Look, Mom!” Maddy calls. “Look! I’m hanging upside down!” Her skirt isn’t long enough to cover her head and drapes around her bunching jacket as her hat falls to the ground.

The whistle blows and the playground empties as the children line up by their teachers. Jennifer stands near Maddy, who is in front of Henry on the line. Penny (for Margaret, not Penelope) wails that she’s left her coat in the playground. Maddy remembers and runs to get it. Out of breath, she returns and reaches the line just as Ms. Monroe begins to lead the children into the building, and inserts herself back in, right in front of Henry.

“There’s no cutting,” Henry says. “You have to go to the back of the line.”

Maddy is incredulous; her lower lip quivers. “I was just getting Penny’s jacket!”

“No cutting!” Henry’s voice increases slightly in volume. “The rule is if you get out of line, you have to go to the end. That’s the rule.”

Jennifer looks at her daughter’s panicking face and feels the protective rage rising through her body and threatening eruption. As Maddy stands frozen, half in and out of the line, Henry’s little hands on his little skinny jean hips, Jennifer can no longer control herself.

“Shut up, Henry.” And once it starts, it will not subside.

“Shut, just shut up, Henry.” She is still wearing her sunglasses but can feel, hotly, nakedly, the other parents turning and focusing on her. She pulls her breath in sharply. If Henry says “No cutting” one more time . . .

He does, and as the children file into the classroom, their heads swiveled around to watch her scream, she fully releases. “Shut up, Henry! Shut up! Shut up! Just! Shut! Up!”