by Roxanne Bok
“Jane. That is not a nice thing to say. And Daddy does not have a ‘large bottom’. People come in all different shapes and sizes and it’s what’s inside that matters.”
The content of my saccharine speech falls as flat as my delivery. To quote a Dr. Seuss character: “I said and said and said these words, I said them but I lied them.”
Losing ground, I cave and pull out old faithful.
“Besides, Jane, you are not eating your dinner. Please eat a piece of chicken. When you eat well, you can have an Oreo for dessert.”
“I’m eating a carrot.” Jane opens her mouth wide to display chewed carrot, but it is not lost on any of us that though Jane has artfully rearranged her plate, she is still working on her first bite of the meal. The rest of us, meanwhile, have set a record pace in order to end our misery. Elliot, impatient for some Oreos, can’t restrain himself any longer.
“Jane, you are so slow. And, you have the worst eating habits. All you ever eat is candy and ice cream and snack all day long. You’re gonna’ be fat.”
Jane crumbles. Shoulders sagging, she hangs her large head in shame. Her straight brown hair covers most of her face, and hot tears drip onto her untouched chicken.
“Good move, El,” I say.
“But it’s true,” he protests, genuinely hurt.
“Jane has to learn to pace herself just like you did when you were four. Please say you’re sorry to Jane, and Jane, please have a bite of chicken.” I catch her just before her “woe is me” point of no return.
There is a thoughtful pause in which we are all humbled. Elliot rescues us.
“Sorry, Janie.”
“It’s okay, Aayot.”
I REALIZE THAT A KID BEHAVING BADLY IS EXPECTED and necessary for proper development. And it is often funny in retrospect. But there are the times when parents behave atrociously and can broker no excuse. Many of us have cringe-worthy experiences we wish we could take back or at least forget. They never invoke nostalgia and torture us forever. My lack of skill on one particular day shocks me still.
I had had too much tea, caffeine being both necessary and the enemy. On the one hand, I’m naturally tightly wound, and stimulants are the last thing I need. On the other, to play with my kids on weekend mornings instead of sleeping late while they watch videos, I need a little boost. So, this Saturday morning in February, in Salisbury the cruelest month, I was over-caffeinated and bushed from a long week.
“Okay, this is the plan,” my husband brightly declared over the Snap, Crackle, Pop! of Rice Krispies. “Elliot: you need to be at the rink early for Coach John’s pre-game strategy, so we’ll head off first. Mom and Jane: you two can follow in time for the game.”
“Okay,” Elliot and I shouted in unison.
Jane looked at her feet, jutting out her lower lip.
Scott and I were excited about the tournament this year. Elliot’s hockey team’s win/loss for the season was a respectable eight and eight, much improved from last year’s record which Elliot accurately termed “undefeated defeated.”
We said our goodbyes and good lucks.
“OK, Jane,” I said cheerfully, “let’s tidy up the kitchen, brush your teeth and catch up with the boys.”
Thinking ahead, I had already brought Jane’s toothbrush downstairs since my kids both complain about having to go back up after breakfast.
“But, I don’t wanna’ go,” Jane whined.
“Why not? It’ll be fun, and Ellie’s counting on us to root for him. We need your loud cheering.”
“But I don’t like hockey. It’s cold.”
She was damn straight about that, but I reminded her, “You can play in the warm room with all the other sisters and brothers.”
“No. I’m not going!”
“Well, let’s just brush teeth and see how we feel. How about a lollipop once we get there?” I maneuvered her backward-dragging, surprisingly sturdy thirty-five pounds into the powder room.
Through tears Jane stepped onto the footstool next to the sink, getting madder by the second.
“Opennnn uuuup,” I sang, trying to keep the mood light, her funk at bay.
She locked her jaw and lips and wagged her head slowly from side to side. I encouraged, but she gave me the “dare stare.” I yelled at her to open up. Time was of the essence: these hockey games go fast and I wanted to see my son play. The games were finally exciting after four long seasons of slow motion skating during which Scott and I faithfully froze our butts off very early weekend mornings from November through March.
The tea, tension and weariness kicked in.
“Alright, Jane; I’m leaving without you.”
I stormed out of the bathroom and opened and slammed the front door without going out. I was out of control, flushed and angry. I was the nine-year-old my mother left, part of me still stuck in that time and place.
Being four years old, Jane missed that I lacked shoes and a coat. I quick-turned upstairs to my bedroom to wait, unconscionably planning to hide when she came looking. Soon she was screaming, the full combo platter of hurt, hysterics, rage and fear.
“MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMY!
I heard her feet thundering the hardwood floors. My heart raced, but I was red hot enough that I continued to ignore her. It surprised me that she didn’t look upstairs, but then again, she thought I had left. I waited, maybe three minutes. In that sudden flash of mother’s intuition, I felt the eerie emptiness of too quiet. In a cold panic, I flew through the rooms.
“Jane! Jane! Here I am!”
I almost fell down the stairs, taking them three at a time, using the banister to propel me faster.
“Jane! Jane! Mommy’s here! Jane!” I shouted, desperate.
In the kitchen, a raw fear directed my glance out the window only to catch a last glimpse of Jane as she disappeared around the bend. She had crossed our country road, where traffic is intermittent but rural fast, and just where the hill creates a nasty blind spot. Small and low, she was marching along the snow-dusted edge of the road, against traffic as we do on our family hikes. She had no coat, and her shoeless feet were clad in white GAP socks with the non-skid bottoms.
I tore outside, listening hard for traffic so I did not have to stop and look, praying madly: Don’t let a car come, don’t let a car come. I waited to call out to her, not wanting to lure her back across the road. Catching up, I knelt and took her in my arms.
“Janie, Janie! Where are you going?
“I’m going to find you and see the boys play hockey.” She was still crying, but less because she was on a mission and in the right direction, too.
“Oh, Jane! Did you look both ways?”
I needed to know this was a “Yes” or I would die. Not that it really mattered, because when little kids look, they rotate their heads dramatically and say clear, whether it is or not.
I scooped her up, ran inside, and held her tight on my lap on the hall stairs. The clock chimed Scrooge’s warning of a horrible future if I did not shape up. I hugged and kissed her repeatedly like a Catholic penance, and in my head thanked God over and over that she was safe. I took her puffy, beautiful face in my hands.
“Jane. Look at me. Mommy did a bad thing. I would never leave you here alone, ever. I was mad and I tricked you. It was wrong, and I’m very, very sorry. I’ll never trick you again, I promise. You have to promise Mommy that you’ll never go outside again by yourself, no matter what, and never, ever, go in the road.”
“OK Mommy, I promise.”
We drove to the hockey game. Her mood improved remarkably, her ego fed by my prostrations and seeing her mother make, and admit to, a whopper of a mistake. While she recovered, I brooded. Reduced to more of a wreck with time, I despaired clandestinely for two days every time I thought about it, which was perpetual. Why can’t I be one of those maternal mothers who gives everything necessary and has endless patience? I wanted to cry for relief, but some acts are beyond catharsis.
The next night Scott and I went on our weekly dinn
er date. Over a stiff martini I started to shake.
“Roxanne, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t think I can tell you.”
“Well you have to tell me now.”
I blurted out the whole despicable story, right down to the GAP socks, trying to justify my end of it by weakly emphasizing Jane’s uncooperative-ness and the tea, tension and weariness. But we both knew it for brutality, plain and simple, and that my childish self had gotten the better of me.
To his credit, Scott did not flip out. Worse, tears formed in his eyes. A few of mine fell into my drink. I gulped all to dull the sting.
“Oh, don’t cry. She’s okay. We’re not perfect, and they can really get you angry sometimes.” He took my hand. “Really.”
“Thank God she’s alright. But you know how fast those cars go, and they can’t even see us over that hill, and she’s so little. What if. . . .” I couldn’t finish.
“But it didn’t, right? We’re lucky no car came. It’s okay. I’m glad you told me. . . . I don’t know that I would have told you.”
He paused.
“One time, I told Jane to go out front and wait by the car, and when I came out she was very close to the road. I couldn’t tell you.”
“Close to the road,” I whispered angrily, “that’s nothing! She crossed the road! I’ll never get over this, ever. I’m afraid to go to sleep tonight—I know I’ll have nightmares and then the worst will happen. How can I live here and see that hill all the time?”
He eventually calmed me and getting it out helped some, though Scott’s story of his own mistake paled in comparison.
This happened almost two years ago. Is it true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? I’d like to think that mistreatment of one’s own children happens at least once to every otherwise good parent, but maybe this is wishful thinking. My stomach lurches when I think about it. Every time. I wonder if it will ever recede in my mind’s eye—that clarity of little Jane, at four, crossing the road in her baby socks, and a car flying over the top of the hill.
KIDS EVENTUALLY FORCED ME TO GROW UP and stop indulging the child lingering in my forty-six-year-old skin. Well, most of the time. The refocus from a narcissistic me, me, me to “it’s all about them, stupid” was a seismic aftershock of recognition if not a full tectonic shift in practice. It’s damn hard to balance their needs—more of me all the time—with my preferred occupations of the adult variety. So, I carefully avoid crossing the line where complete self-sacrifice will render me a resentful monster. Call me selfish.
I hoped the farm could address all of our needs. Responsible animal care could conjoin parental obligations of high-quality, weekend family time and my own unrealized fantasies of adventure. A practical plan: together we could learn farming, and what animal-loving kid could resist a private petting zoo? I envisioned the four of us taking a late afternoon stroll around the new farm, relaxing together as a family, performing tasks that intrigue, and do not bore, any of us. I assumed that they, and Scott, would happily tag along through my clever tactic of manifesting my dream for all of us.
Humph.
Scott, Elliot and Jane craft their own agendas that seldom conform to mine. Every time I suggested a walk to check out the farm, which I grant was often, everyone begged off. A lackluster “we just went yesterday” or “can’t we go later?” deflated my plumping eagerness. Huh? I couldn’t wait to see the fresh wood going up in the stalls, the custom-made stall doors that slide at the touch of a finger, the bright lighting powered by new wiring, the brown paint job with the cream trim on the cross hatch-ings, the additional view-enhancing windows in the tack room (my idea), the safety railings on the loft, the finishing trim along the hall ceilings. Not to mention the outside developments—the newly sawn light brown wood against the salvaged old blue/grey planks on the outbuildings, the carefully measured and leveled riding ring, the expansion of the fields with the old fencing dismantled, the wood-fresh, patient piles of replacement posts and boards, the buttressing skeleton of the round gazebo, stripped of its sidewalls and shot through with sunbeams, the water line trenches dug deep into moist black earth en route to the automatic paddock waterers, the mountains of soil transported to shift the wet spots.
I could not get enough of just getting a feel for the place. When I could, I’d sneak off to the farm at the end of the day. I would wander around alone, pace through the quiet of the fields, guiltily watch the birds and deer reclaim their abused land, and absorb the hollow of the barn absent of creatures and purpose. As a business, its “personality” was undeveloped. All was hopeful possibility, potential: the dedication page of our book or the preface. Yet volumes were already written on this land: those of Mrs. Johnson, the Dutch settlers now resting in the small cemetery, and the Weatogue tribes. Old barns and cultivated fields hold secrets: buried histories of work and process, life and death. Ours will eventually join them, living first through the new skin of crops re-tended and animals once again sheltered, only to someday pass into silent, subtle signs, like Mrs. Johnson’s to me: the patterned trails grooved by horses’ hooves, the mare and foal weathervane atop the gazebo, the uncommonly flat footprint of a vanished outbuilding’s foundation. Many years hence our own forgotten souvenirs may include a half-rooted, rusted weathervane with specs of gilt stubborn in the carved recesses of the dressage horse’s tail and mane, a brass harness buckle long-rested in some tall grass of an abandoned paddock, or, among the cobwebbed rafters, a thickly dusted Weatogue Stables ribbon of faded blue that crumbles upon lifting.
But if my family lacked appreciation for our new venture and its place in history, at least two of my brood eagerly anticipated the riding. Elliot especially “got” that part, at least. And it was pure—free of the material aspect, be it barn-building or trophies. He harbored no ambition to show, compete, over-analyze or perfect his skills, and barn aesthetics were inconsequential. His ability to be “in the moment” on horseback was a beautiful thing. Or, was I glamorizing things?
“Are you ever afraid, Elliot?” I asked.
“No.”
“Do you find it hard to post and trot?”
“No.”
“What do you like about it?”
“I don’t know. It’s just fun.”
“Would you like to do it more?”
“Not really.”
Where was his passion? He showed little enthusiasm for riding my new Bandi, and his favorite horse time preceded and had followed his few earlier lessons, hanging out with Albert, his instructor Jessica’s very first horse, too old and lame to serve. Once, when Al’s feet weren’t sore, she let Elliot ride him, a rare privilege. They bonded. On top of a full bag of carrots, Elliot raced back and forth to procure handfuls of fresh pasture grass, feeding them only to Al’s soft and grateful muzzle. I was told keeping him riding would be my main challenge, that boys drop out once they realize the young American horse world is ruled by girls. I wondered if he would slowly drift away.
But one weekend Elliot’s city friend Max accompanied us to the farm. Upon entering the barn Elliot took a deep breath and, with unadulterated sensual fulfillment, he proclaimed:
“I love the smell of a barn.”
“You LIKE that smell? That poop smell?” Max said, eyes popping, incredulous.
YES, Elliot! I rejoiced inwardly. He did appreciate barns; they just had to be full of living, breathing, smelly creatures. You either get it or you don’t, and Elliot got it through the nose. Well-kept horses produce a clean natural smell, appealing once you acclimate. An occupied barn holds scents, sounds, sights and routines that orchestrate music to the senses: the hollow clop of horses’ hooves along the concrete or dirt aisles, or the occasional kick against the stall walls; the sweetness of bales and the tang of manure, itself vegetarian and inoffensive, produced of digested grass, hay and grain. A seasonal rhythm: in warm months, the day-in horses, having spent their nights outside, hang their heads over their stall guards, heavy with their version of wakeful sleep
, nodding and watching. In cold months, the day-out horses, rested from their night in their stall, enjoy their sunny paddocks, the bright snow quenching their thirst, or huddle in their sheds against a cutting wind.
Horses are herd animals, and they communicate vocally and bodily. Wherever they are, they whinny and neigh greetings and warnings to each other and keep a watchful eye, tracking each others’ comings and goings, shadowing their buddies. Their ears and lips “speak” two additional dialects. Flat back ears and meaningful nips show displeasure across the paddock fences, despite electric dissuaders. Inside, a horse startles, upset or angry, and disturbs the peace—her loud cries echoing against the worn wood. An impatient kick that bends the thick stall wall, restless neighing and pacing is soothed or rebuked by a human voice, a minor test of wills, and all settle again. I watched one trainer force an irate, anxious-for-his-dinner horse back out of his box stall, re-entering six times until his barging gave way to a tiptoed, mannered grace. Being dragged around by a horse is a losing game: we must teach them consideration of puny us.
Barn visuals and procedures addicted my human pleasure receptors—the long, narrow, dimming aisles that end in large squares of light where the double doors stand open to blazing summer glare; the sun and shade of the in and out that test our apertures; the dust that floats in the trapezoidal slants of illumination cut from skylights and barred stall windows; activity and rest that ebb and flow in gentle cycles. Stalls are mucked out and animals fed to a regular schedule, with clean bedding and hay snacks delivered by wheelbarrow or a pair of strong arms. Everyday, an industrial barn vacuum sucks the long aisles clear of wayward hay, shavings, hair and dirt, but it is a losing game. The filling of water buckets can’t be hurried, but the feed tray can be rolled along more quickly to pacify the hungry. The staff moves at a calm, steady pace to conserve energy and keep to the horses’ schedules. There is no getting ahead of this work, no benefit to rushing. It is relentless.