Good Mother
by Katharine Bost
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My mother used to tell me, “Motherhood always starts out as a blessing.” She never revealed how it ended, but the implication was enough. To her, there was nothing more special than cradling a swaddled infant. But what happens when the infant grows? When they become a toddler? A child? God forbid, a teenager? “The best thing you can do,” she would say, “is to be your idea of a good mother.”
The wooden box shifts on the table when I push it away from me. The contents roll around, clattering against one another. I don’t like it on the table, far away from me, though, so I place it on my lap. Finger the creases and nicks. |
Photo by TheMIS Photography on Unsplash
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“What I want to know,” a girl with braids and a visor says, “is why the police haven’t arrested her yet.” She wipes down the hot sauce bar for the fifth time in the past hour. It is clean.
She’s speaking to one of her coworkers, a wiry waiter with glasses thicker than the table I sit at. He has a face littered with freckles and pimples, some overlapping each other. Beside the girl with braids, he is short and scrawny. Probably used to get beaten up on the playground when he was in elementary.
Jamie might have looked like him.
“No evidence,” the boy says, and his deep voice contrasts the rest of his squeaky demeanor.
They’re talking about me. It doesn’t matter to them whether I can hear their conversation or not. But it matters to me, so I fiddle with the paper my straw came in to keep from opening the box. I rip it in half at first. Then those
pieces in half. Then those pieces in half. Then…
“Everyone knows she did it,” the girl says. Her nametag reads Rochelle, but the boy calls her Roch. She seems like the sort of girl Jamie might have admired. Tall, confident, outspoken without being arrogant. She might have been a good babysitter.
I have run out of paper to shred, and my fork is plastic—too hard to pull apart. If one of the servers comes by, I’ll ask for a napkin.
“Knowing she did it doesn’t hold up in court,” the boy says.
He is a smart child, and not just because he wears glasses. He’s smart because he has nothing else, no one else. No one to play with when he was young—likely an only child. So he surrounded himself with books, memorizing encyclopedias and dictionaries. At least, this is what I imagine his childhood was like.
I wonder what his mother thought—thinks—of him. Whether she’s proud that he spends his weekends working at Tijuana Typhoon instead of partying with his classmates.
“She should confess,” Rochelle says. “Save the city a bunch of money taking her to court. It’s a waste of taxpayer money.”
The girl is barely sixteen and hasn’t had a taste of the stupid places that taxpayer money goes. Just five years ago, the whole city had to pool our money together to build a professional rugby stadium. State of the art, the mayor had said. We don’t want to be behind the times. So we brought a rugby team in, and it didn’t even last three years. No one went to the stadium, and the team won a grand total of two games. Now the multimillion-dollar complex stands abandoned, rotting away like everything else in this town.
Like Jamie?
The difference between the stadium—Jamie—is that the people in the town are alive. We’re alive and rotting.
Neither the boy nor the girl wants to approach me, though I will them to. Every night I come in they try to pass me off on the other. It’s not a fancy restaurant, and you order at the register, but any conversation with me is too much for them.
They don’t know me, but they knew Jamie. Rochelle did, at least. She had—has—a younger sister his age. It’s strange to think that in a few years, the sister may be working here. Maybe wiping down the hot sauce bar even though it doesn’t need cleaning. Maybe talking about strangers in corner booths with red matted hair covering their eyes and a wooden box in their laps.
My hair is matted, and I push it off my forehead. It has been days since I’ve cleaned it. Grimy. The boy and girl move to wipe down a table nearby, but they keep their distance. “I heard,” the boy says, his voice low but not too low that I can’t hear it, “that they found scratch marks on the outside of her car.”
“But you said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove in court,” the girl says, her eyes flickering in my direction.
I can see them through a mirror on the wall opposite of me. They don’t know I’m watching them. They think…they have me figured out.
“They can’t prove they’re from him. But my cousin got a look at the car before they seized it. Said there are deep scratches, like the kid was clawing at it. Trying to get back inside.”
When I look down, I see that my fingers have bent, stiff at the joints. They have formed claws without my permission. If I scratched my car with my hands like this, could I leave deep scratches, too?
“That’s awful.” She looks at me again, this time with a different expression. I meet her gaze in the mirror, but she doesn’t notice.
“What’s really awful,” the boy starts, but pauses to flip a chair over the table. It’s almost closing time. “What’s really awful is that they haven’t found his body. They don’t know what she did to it.”
“Him,” I say under my breath. “They don’t know what I did to him.”
If the two hear me, they don’t know I’m talking to them. They ignore me, focusing on flipping the chairs onto the tables. They don’t like asking me to leave, so every night they will stare at me, hoping I take the hint and exit on my own. But I don’t.
I unnerve them. My fingers, still in their clawed shape, drag over the wooden box in my lap. My nails make a satisfying scratch, and I think of nails on metal. Nails slicing through acrylic enamel. A bump beneath tires. A crunch of…
“It could be anywhere,” the boy says, and then he nods at me. “It’s your night to tell her.”
The girl’s eyes widen, but she nods. She stands still, even after the boy has walked away to the cash register. It takes several moments for her to approach me, and I pretend not to notice. I trace the lines of the box over and over and over. I count the days to his birthday. Start over. Count the number of years he was alive. Start over. Count the number of times I--
“Ma’am.” Her voice is shaky. “We’re, um, closing.”
I don’t answer at first. She twists the toe of her shoe on the ground. “I said we’re—”
“Do you want to see what’s in my box?” I ask, lifting it so it’s on the table.
The girl shakes her head. The confidence from earlier—the one I had noticed and imagined Jamie would admire—it trembles. It crumbles beneath a façade of childishness. Naivety. She shakes her head.
“No—no thank you,” she says.
I smile at her. It was supposed to be nice, but the mirror shows it for what it truly is.
“Very well,” I say, and then I stand, taking my wooden box with me. I clutch it close to my chest, keeping it closed to respect the girl’s wishes. It isn’t until I’m outside the restaurant, after they’ve locked me out, that I retreat to a corner to gaze upon its contents.
I held onto these gifts to remind myself of him. My Jamie. His fingernails, torn and dirty. Two of his teeth, chipped down the middle. The rest of his baby teeth, rattling away whenever the box so much as shivers, are intact. But I hold onto these because I hold onto him, and I won’t let him go. I won’t grab his hand, broken and bobbing above muddy river water, but I… hold onto what I have.
Because accidents happen, and I was a good mother.
She’s speaking to one of her coworkers, a wiry waiter with glasses thicker than the table I sit at. He has a face littered with freckles and pimples, some overlapping each other. Beside the girl with braids, he is short and scrawny. Probably used to get beaten up on the playground when he was in elementary.
Jamie might have looked like him.
“No evidence,” the boy says, and his deep voice contrasts the rest of his squeaky demeanor.
They’re talking about me. It doesn’t matter to them whether I can hear their conversation or not. But it matters to me, so I fiddle with the paper my straw came in to keep from opening the box. I rip it in half at first. Then those
pieces in half. Then those pieces in half. Then…
“Everyone knows she did it,” the girl says. Her nametag reads Rochelle, but the boy calls her Roch. She seems like the sort of girl Jamie might have admired. Tall, confident, outspoken without being arrogant. She might have been a good babysitter.
I have run out of paper to shred, and my fork is plastic—too hard to pull apart. If one of the servers comes by, I’ll ask for a napkin.
“Knowing she did it doesn’t hold up in court,” the boy says.
He is a smart child, and not just because he wears glasses. He’s smart because he has nothing else, no one else. No one to play with when he was young—likely an only child. So he surrounded himself with books, memorizing encyclopedias and dictionaries. At least, this is what I imagine his childhood was like.
I wonder what his mother thought—thinks—of him. Whether she’s proud that he spends his weekends working at Tijuana Typhoon instead of partying with his classmates.
“She should confess,” Rochelle says. “Save the city a bunch of money taking her to court. It’s a waste of taxpayer money.”
The girl is barely sixteen and hasn’t had a taste of the stupid places that taxpayer money goes. Just five years ago, the whole city had to pool our money together to build a professional rugby stadium. State of the art, the mayor had said. We don’t want to be behind the times. So we brought a rugby team in, and it didn’t even last three years. No one went to the stadium, and the team won a grand total of two games. Now the multimillion-dollar complex stands abandoned, rotting away like everything else in this town.
Like Jamie?
The difference between the stadium—Jamie—is that the people in the town are alive. We’re alive and rotting.
Neither the boy nor the girl wants to approach me, though I will them to. Every night I come in they try to pass me off on the other. It’s not a fancy restaurant, and you order at the register, but any conversation with me is too much for them.
They don’t know me, but they knew Jamie. Rochelle did, at least. She had—has—a younger sister his age. It’s strange to think that in a few years, the sister may be working here. Maybe wiping down the hot sauce bar even though it doesn’t need cleaning. Maybe talking about strangers in corner booths with red matted hair covering their eyes and a wooden box in their laps.
My hair is matted, and I push it off my forehead. It has been days since I’ve cleaned it. Grimy. The boy and girl move to wipe down a table nearby, but they keep their distance. “I heard,” the boy says, his voice low but not too low that I can’t hear it, “that they found scratch marks on the outside of her car.”
“But you said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove in court,” the girl says, her eyes flickering in my direction.
I can see them through a mirror on the wall opposite of me. They don’t know I’m watching them. They think…they have me figured out.
“They can’t prove they’re from him. But my cousin got a look at the car before they seized it. Said there are deep scratches, like the kid was clawing at it. Trying to get back inside.”
When I look down, I see that my fingers have bent, stiff at the joints. They have formed claws without my permission. If I scratched my car with my hands like this, could I leave deep scratches, too?
“That’s awful.” She looks at me again, this time with a different expression. I meet her gaze in the mirror, but she doesn’t notice.
“What’s really awful,” the boy starts, but pauses to flip a chair over the table. It’s almost closing time. “What’s really awful is that they haven’t found his body. They don’t know what she did to it.”
“Him,” I say under my breath. “They don’t know what I did to him.”
If the two hear me, they don’t know I’m talking to them. They ignore me, focusing on flipping the chairs onto the tables. They don’t like asking me to leave, so every night they will stare at me, hoping I take the hint and exit on my own. But I don’t.
I unnerve them. My fingers, still in their clawed shape, drag over the wooden box in my lap. My nails make a satisfying scratch, and I think of nails on metal. Nails slicing through acrylic enamel. A bump beneath tires. A crunch of…
“It could be anywhere,” the boy says, and then he nods at me. “It’s your night to tell her.”
The girl’s eyes widen, but she nods. She stands still, even after the boy has walked away to the cash register. It takes several moments for her to approach me, and I pretend not to notice. I trace the lines of the box over and over and over. I count the days to his birthday. Start over. Count the number of years he was alive. Start over. Count the number of times I--
“Ma’am.” Her voice is shaky. “We’re, um, closing.”
I don’t answer at first. She twists the toe of her shoe on the ground. “I said we’re—”
“Do you want to see what’s in my box?” I ask, lifting it so it’s on the table.
The girl shakes her head. The confidence from earlier—the one I had noticed and imagined Jamie would admire—it trembles. It crumbles beneath a façade of childishness. Naivety. She shakes her head.
“No—no thank you,” she says.
I smile at her. It was supposed to be nice, but the mirror shows it for what it truly is.
“Very well,” I say, and then I stand, taking my wooden box with me. I clutch it close to my chest, keeping it closed to respect the girl’s wishes. It isn’t until I’m outside the restaurant, after they’ve locked me out, that I retreat to a corner to gaze upon its contents.
I held onto these gifts to remind myself of him. My Jamie. His fingernails, torn and dirty. Two of his teeth, chipped down the middle. The rest of his baby teeth, rattling away whenever the box so much as shivers, are intact. But I hold onto these because I hold onto him, and I won’t let him go. I won’t grab his hand, broken and bobbing above muddy river water, but I… hold onto what I have.
Because accidents happen, and I was a good mother.
Katharine Bost holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University, and her work has appeared in Last Resort Literary Review, The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review, Tangled Locks Journal, and Mikrokosmos, among others.
