The Under-Protective Mother

The Under-Protective Mother
~A True Story~


You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
                                                                                                   ~Winston Churchill

         Sweat trickled down the small of my back as I waited in the sweltering sun with the other moms for the elementary school bus to deliver our children. Why the Jefferson City school district coincided the first week of the academic year with Georgia’s dog days of August was a mystery to me, but as a new resident in the area, I stayed tight-lipped with my criticism. I looked longingly at the tree saplings planted in the front yards of each newly constructed house on our street; they cast meager shadows which, I realized, probably wouldn’t provide enough shade for us to stand under until our children were well into high school. Worried I’d appear rude to the other women, all of whom I was still getting to know, I tried to focus my attention back to their conversation when I noticed little Stevie had tottered away from the sidewalk where we stood, and down the neighbor’s driveway.

         At two years old, Stevie was the youngest child on our street. He stopped at the walkway that led to the neighbor’s front door and lifted a clumsy foot onto the cement pavers lining the flower bed. I narrowed my eyes as Stevie pulled the other foot up, and I drew a sharp breath when he wobbled on the uneven surface and fell hard to the other side, crushing a spray of pansies. I shot a look at Stevie’s mother, Laura. She was tall and reminded me of an ostrich with a squat head atop a long neck, connected to a bottom-heavy, rotund body. With her back to Stevie, she stood in oblivion facing the ring of chatting mothers. Stevie planted one hand in the flowers and the other in the wood chips around them, raised his rear end into the air on straight legs, and then lifted his torso until he was upright. He clapped his chubby hands together, watching bits of cedar debris fall from them, before mounting the pavers again.

         My nerves prickled as I pictured skinned knees and twisted ankles. I cleared my throat, only catching the attention of my next door neighbor, Tonya, whose wide, unblinking eyes told me she’d noticed Stevie’s antics.

         “Laura?” I tried in a small voice, but she didn’t turn her head. She shifted her weight then and the blazing sun reflected off the discrete, flesh-colored hearing aid in her ear, reminding me of her handicap. I reached out and touched her arm. “Laura?”

         She looked at me, and I offered an apologetic smile as I nodded in Stevie’s direction. She followed my gaze and sighed loudly.

         “Stevie!” she called. “Come here. That’s not our house.” She paused, and then added, “Come on.”

         Stevie looked at her with a proud, devious smile, then dropped his eyes to his Power Rangers sandals and took another unsteady step along the border.

         Laura turned to me and giggled, shaking her head. “He stopped taking his afternoon naps. Now I never get a break!”

         All the mothers nodded sympathetically as the bus roared up the street and the air filled with the metallic screech of its brakes.

         As the two of us crossed the street with our children, Tonya asked if I had a minute to chat. We walked up the steep drive and stopped in the grass between our houses.

         “What’s up?” I asked.

         Tonya watched her two blonde girls run across the lawn with my brunette daughter. She glanced down and nudged a stone with her toe, overturning it and exposing a worm whose glistening body wiggled deeper into the moist soil. “I think I saw something and it really upset me,” she began.

         I wasn’t sure where this was going and since we’d only known each other three months, my insecurities alleged that I’d done something to offend her. “Did I do something?” I asked nervously.

         “No!” She gave my arm a reassuring squeeze, but her quick smile was fleeting. “This morning I saw Laura take Kate to kindergarten, and I don’t think Stevie was in the car.”

         Our subdivision was close to the school, and it was the first neighborhood on the morning bus route where youngsters were picked up, and the first where they were dropped off in the afternoon. Rather than have our children leave for school fifty minutes before the bell rang, everyone drove their kids there, and they took the bus home. As I stared into Tonya’s worried eyes, the accusation she was making sunk in.

         “Are you saying you think Laura left Stevie home alone this morning?”

         “Jessica!” she shouted, startling me. “Put your helmet on if you are going to ride that bike. If you fall, you’ll split your head right open.” Tonya lowered her voice. “Sorry. Well, I was at the sink and you know from that window I can see right across the street to her place. The garage door went up and she and Kate came out and got in the car in the driveway. Brian’s car wasn’t parked in the garage; I could see that for sure. The door lowered and she drove away.”

         “Maybe someone else was in the house?” I offered.

         “Maybe,” Tonya said. “Listen, if you happen to see when she leaves in the mornings, notice if he’s with her, would you? I mean, if she’s leaving him by himself, well, that just can’t happen.”

         I had been able to tell the first time I met Tonya that she was an overprotective mother, but then she’d shared with me that her youngest daughter, now three years old, had been born premature, and I forgave her obsessive fears. When her child had lain in an incubator on the cusp of life and death, entwined in a tangle of tubes and so frail that an unsterile touch could have killed her, Tonya learned how fragile life was. Forever more, she has lived with a heightened instinct in her heart to protect all children from harm.

         The dense fog was lifting the next morning as I returned from taking my kids to school. I realized Laura’s car was in front of me. Now was my chance to see if she'd get Stevie out of the car, or if she'd go into the house alone. She lifted a hand to me as she made a right into her driveway. I waved back, passing slowly, riding the breaks and watching her in my rearview mirror as I rolled the last fifty yards before turning left into my driveway. I noticed she stayed in her car even after I’d pulled into the garage, so I didn’t close the door as was my habit. Instead, I exited the garage and walked nonchalantly down to the mailbox. Naturally, there was no mail at 7:30 a.m., but I opened the box and peered in as if I weren’t sure whether it was empty. Turning to make my way back up the drive, I glimpsed Laura sitting in her car, waiting. When I neared the house, I heard Laura’s garage door open. I hastened my pace and as soon as I was far enough into my garage to be out of her view, I broke into a run. I slapped the button to close the garage door and dashed through the house to the kitchen window just in time to see Laura’s garage close shut.

         Two days later, as I rinsed the chocolate milk out of the children’s breakfast cups and shouted for them to brush quicker or we’d be late for school, I saw out the window Laura’s garage door open. Sure enough, she hastened Kate into the back seat, walked around the rear of the car, and got in the driver’s side. I jumped as the phone rang.

         “Hey, it’s Tonya. Are you looking out your window?”

         “Yeah, I see her. Stevie is definitely not with her!”

         “When I was waking up Jessica at 6:30, I happened to see Brian leave for work. There is no one in the house with that child, and with all the school traffic, she won’t be back for at least twenty-five minutes. What if he wakes up and no one comes when he cries? What if he tries to climb out the crib and falls? Someone could break in… What if the house catches fire?”

         I agreed to take Tonya’s daughter to school so she could watch for smoke or an intruder should either appear before Laura returned. Forty-five minutes later, Tonya was pouring me a cup of coffee in her kitchen.

         “We’ve got to confront her,” I said, staring down at my reflection in the mug of black coffee.

         “What if she thinks we’re ganging up on her? No, I was the one that brought this to your attention. I should be the one to deal with it.”

         “Alright, what are you going to do? Knock on her door?”

         Tonya sighed. She held up an orange square of paper for me to see. ‘Child Protective Services’ was scrawled across it with a phone number underneath. “I hate this,” she said suddenly, shaking the paper. “We just moved in here and if I have her investigated, I’ll have a whole family of enemies right across the street.”

         I ran my fingers through my hair. “Look, if someone had a problem with me, I know I’d appreciate it if they came and talked to me about it. Maybe she doesn’t understand how dangerous she’s being?”

         Tonya snorted. “Oh please, how could she not?”

         “I agree, but she’s a human being and deserves a chance to do the right thing. You should go talk to her,” I urged.

         Tonya sipped from her mug. Then her eyes snapped up. “What if I wrote an anonymous letter and stuck it in her mail box?”

         I rolled my eyes. Picking up the orange paper, I walked to the refrigerator. It was covered with photos and the girls’ artwork stuck on with magnets of famous Disney characters. I placed the paper under a magnet of Mufasa and turned to face Tonya.

          “Go talk to her,” I said. “If she’s a bitch to you, or she keeps leaving Stevie alone, then you can call Child Protective Services knowing you did everything you could.”

         Later that day, Tonya called me. She had been to Laura’s house and confronted her. At first, Laura had acted surprised, as if she didn’t know what Tonya was implying, but Tonya had been firm. She said if Laura left Stevie alone again, she would call the authorities. That’s when Laura had broken down. Fat tears had rolled down her fleshy cheeks as she lamented the woes of raising a rambunctious toddler. She’d pleaded with Tonya to understand how temperamental Stevie became when he was woken up early in the morning. Tonya was sympathetic but listed the obvious reasons Laura had to stop her risky behavior, and with a gentle smile that barely buffered a parting threat, she took her leave.

         Weeks passed and the air grew chilly. Tonya and I noted Laura loading both Kate and a pajama-clad Stevie into the car on school mornings. One crisp Saturday afternoon I was chatting at Tonya’s kitchen sink as she filled the coffee pot. We both glanced up when movement out the window caught our eyes. Laura was leading Kate and her little, pig-tailed friend down their front walk to the driveway. Laura opened the front passenger door and helped the two girls into the bucket seat. She pulled the seatbelt across both their laps then moved the shoulder strap from in front of their faces to behind their heads. My mouth fell open as I watched her walk around to the driver’s side, then drive off.

         “Unbelievable. At least she put a seat belt on them,” I muttered sarcastically.

         Tonya didn’t respond. She was already clutching the telephone and reaching for the paper under the Mufasa magnet.



(Word Count [not including title] – 1998)

Written for the August round of:

SURVEY

Quotation Inspiration: Official Contest  (ASR) Use the quote provided to write a story and win big prizes! #1207944 by Writing.Com Support