This mom, whose name was Maria (named after no one in particular: her parents had both been confined within the tacit expectations of having a family name so they'd named her Maria even though neither of them was Italian,) was getting out of the car with her child. She was thirteen. Maria found her difficult.
In this instance, the child was listening to music on Maria's phone, draining its' already anemic battery. This was after she'd drained the battery in her own device (it had been a long, car ride to the home of an aunt they rarely saw and whose name neither of them could recall; it had been a ride filled with the weak dread only visits to marginalized family members can produce,) and she'd asked Maria if she could use the phone. Maria was pleased with the manners her daughter employed and handed over her phone. The child forgot to thank her, but it had been good enough. Maria made sure that her radio's volume was soft so that it didnt' interfere with the phones' borrowed, barely tolerable mom-music. Then they'd arrived, and they'd parked, and Maria had gotten out of the car but the child sat and listened. Maria had to yell and push on her shoulder three times before there was a response.
"Yes?" Maria's daughter said. Her tone was less than terrific.
"We're here" said her mother, and stood there looking at the girl with the classic expectant expression that all children instinctively loathe.
"And?" she replied, and looked at her mother with the equally classic teenager's glare, unnecessarily emphasising that she thought her mother was stupid.
Maria had had enough. "Give me my phone" she demanded, and when it was proffered snatched it and checked the battery. Predictably, it told her it was just about to shut itself down for lack of a power source, and she cursed because she had left the charger in the other car.
"Nice language for Aunt Dorothy, Mom." The child tried to duck around Maria and casually race to the safety of the aunt's front door and the subsequent blame-free attention, but Maria went to her local YMCA for Boot Camp Fitness three or four times per week and easily blocked her..
"This attitude is really grating on me, Beth. Do you think you should do something here? Is there a better way to speak to me?" Maria had named her lovely child Elizabeth, because it meant gentle or welcoming or some other laudable personality trait. For most of her life the name had been a good fit. But Beth just stood there and looked hurt and then defiant and then hurt again. It was had to tell which of those feelings was the more accessible feeling, the one most open to some gentle chiding, so Maria made the executive decision to go with the hurt part. "Listen: you have to play nicely here, ok? You have to be on that good behavior, because Aunt Dorothy-"
"Aunt Lucretia," Beth interrupted. "I think. I think it's Lucretia, Aunt Lucretia."
"Right, thank you, Aunt Lucretia- an she's family, and we don't see her much but Grandma does. So if you're going to be a punk about this day, Grandma's going to get no end of grief and bullshit from Aunt Lucretia." Maria found it harder and harder to hold back the occasional curse word around her daughter; mostly it was when she was ranting to another parent about something having to do with their children's environs and Beth was well within earshot, but lately she'd slipped when speaking directly to her. Instead of deepening her sarcasm, though, it softened the girl up, her reaction exactly as if she were a pre-schooler being promised something mildly scandalous, like a second snack.
Maria had paused to let that sink in to her very low reservoir of personal strength: she'd made Beth turn her frown from down to parallel with the ground (not "upside down," as the expression normally went, but improvement was improvement,) and she wanted to let it settle with her before she spoke some more, which she knew she must. She thought of her Beth and what she hoped for the girl: friends, status, a compassionate tone to her voice, a lack of body image issues. These following words had to be golden. She immediately squashed an impulse to bring up Beth's overly lavish use of mascara.
She started: "Honey, I resent the time we have to take to do this. I do too, I do. I can think of a hundred and three things that I'd rather be doing. Some of the stuff, I'll be honest, is on my list, like old chores that I never get to and some paperwork that the state wants from me. I was thinking how sad it was that I want to get some chores done instead of being here at- at Aunt Lucretia's? I think you're right- and I was also thinking that it must be worse for you. The stuff you'd rather do. You're right, and frustrated."
Beth was looking at her sidelong and, it seemed, not thinking about her escape from between her wily mother and the car. Maria saw the finale, and she dropped and pinned it. "You should do the music and your clarinet and the walking around with friends now. It's your time to do it; it's my time to pay the bills. But while we're here- and we have to do this, I really mean it, it's just a thing that you do for your family and good friends, it makes them feel comforted, for some reason- you have to take some of that time and focus it on your aunt or your grandfather or whatever. Then you go back to your friends and hobbies and my phone. It's just being kind. The kindness is what makes everything work." Maria was fairly panting by the end of this.
"Everything how?" asked Beth. For the first time since she'd been eleven she looked fully intrigued by something her mother had said to her.
"Can we talk about it on the car ride back? I really need a drink. A beer. I need one of those." Maria was parched and didn't want to continue for fear of getting nodes and having her daughter reject her wisdom once her voice changed into that of a heavy smokers'. Also she knew better than to over-reach. Beth didn't smile at Maria, but when they turned to go into the aunt's house together she took her mother's hand like she'd done many times before, except for lately. Maria had the presence of mind to not make a bid deal out of it.
"I'll try nice," said Beth, and after a pause, "don't expect me to be perfect about it." Maria turned her head just a little and smiled, out of Beth's field of vision.
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