Parenthood can be a burden or gift of love
/St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
BEVERLY BECKHAM
You wonder, sometimes. You walk around the mall and see a lovely young girl with pink cheeks and shiny eyes and a warm, trusting smile holding the hand of a skinny boy who struts a little because you'd strut, too, if someone looked at you the way she looks at him, and you sigh and think, isn't that nice? Isn't love grand?
And then you're waiting in line and there's another girl beside you. Not much older than the first, she is well-dressed, pretty still, but her brow is furrowed and a line, like stitches, divides her forehead. Her mouth droops as though invisible weights tug at the corners, though it is only a child, about 2, who tugs at her sleeve.
"Mommy, Mommy," the child whimpers, a little thing with great blue eyes and platinum hair. "Mommy, Mommy," she insists, growing louder, sadder.
"Shut up, Natalie," the mother says, brushing the child's hand away, and the words ring out in the store's silence like a sudden slap.
The salesperson looks up, then down again, focusing her attention to a form she is filling out. Other people in line stare at the floor.
No one looks at Natalie's mother. Seconds become minutes and Natalie continues to whine.
"Mommy, Mommy," she wails, and you can hear the desperation, the need, in her thin, baby voice.
"I told you to shut up. Can't you just shut up " the mother screams, and despite her youth and her nice clothes she doesn't look pretty anymore.
You leave the line and walk away; but you can't walk away from the image that follows you, from the memory of a tone as cold and sharp as chipped ice.
You walk around and look at other mothers. Some hold their children's hands and take slow steps, stopping every now and then to point out something in a window. Others seem to have forgotten they have a child with them, dragging them along like a pull toy no longer wanted, no longer prized. One mother in jeans and sneakers, not as pretty as Natalie's mother, but perky and smiling, waits in line at Brigham's. She kneels to whisper something to the toddler who waits next to her, brushing a thick dark curl off his face. "We have to be patient a little while longer, and then we'll sit down and have a big dish of ice cream. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Michael?"
"Yeah Ice cream," the boy shouts, hopping up and down, landing on her feet. "Michael wants ice cream now."
"No, not now. See the lady, over there," and Michael pauses to follow his mother's gaze. "She's going to find us a table and come get us, and then we'll sit down and tell her what kind of ice cream we want. I'm going to have chocolate. What are you going to have?"
"Chocolate, too," Michael says, clapping his hands and giggling.
Lucky Michael. Unlucky Natalie. It doesn't seem fair, does it? For Michael, life will be a series of episodes, good and bad, accompanied by explanation and love. For Natalie, there will be only shouting and recrimination and tears.
And people will shake their heads and wonder when the two of them are grown, how children from what are essentially similar backgrounds could have grown up so differently.
