enjoys lounging on the beach, skinny-dipping in lakes, and vanishing as soon as its kids are born. Though aggressive only if provoked, a water moc bite could lead to permanent muscle damage, internal bleeding, loss of an extremity, or death.
The five of us headed down the manicured main road lined with Cook Island pines to Manele Bay.
“Don’t worry, Sid, I’m deleting all the angles where you look like a total fatso,” my mom called over her shoulder.
I looked at Jason. After six years of marriage, he still couldn’t help but register shock at the Moc’s candor.
“And you wonder why you had an eating disorder,” he said under his breath.
When we arrived at the condo, my mom walked us through all the changes she’d made since our last visit. She pointed out the refurbished teak lawn chairs, the marble countertops, and Rocky’s custom canopy bed. The bed stopped me in my tracks. I’d always wanted one as a kid, though I’m not sure I’d ever shared that information with my mom, as I was living full-time with my father by the time I was of canopy-bed age.
When my sister and I were eleven and twelve, my mom suggested we leave San Diego and move to Arizona to live with my dad because she didn’t think she could handle us anymore. Though devastating at the time, I channeled my feelings of rejection into more productive pursuits, like becoming my dad’s girlfriend. By my twenties it was something I could talk about rationally with my therapist (when I wasn’t talking about being my dad’s girlfriend), self-diagnosing my abandonment issues with an eye-roll and a dismissive laugh. I felt nothing about it because, I told myself, I felt nothing about her.
But I couldn’t deny feeling a sting as I locked eyes with Rocky. He probably had the scooter I always wanted, too—and the hot-pink Rollerblades, and the giant lips phone, and the beeper with the clear case. I squeezed Sid’s little body like a Capri Sun and walked into the guest bedroom to drink him in, opting out of the tour.
“Choppy! Wait up! This is the best part,” she said, like a little kid about to attempt a stunt on the monkey bars. Jason continued without me. My mom was too engrossed in her sconces to notice.
“Sconces can really make or break a room,” I heard her say through the wall.
The Moc was always renovating whatever place she currently called home. At least once every six months I’d get an e-mail with pictures of new backsplashes for her kitchen, new tiles for her shower. Each time, she’d become utterly engrossed in the process. And yet, once it was done, she’d inevitably find a reason to shed her skin and move somewhere else. As a child, we moved every year, sometimes to a different state, sometimes just down the block. For as long as I’d known her, my mom’s environment was in flux. And in her younger years, this included the players in it. Both as a homeowner and as a woman, she was restless and fickle. She could be the adoring doting parent one minute and a total stranger the next.
I recognize some of the same instincts in myself. Like her, I too have a track record of cutting relationships short, keeping people at arm’s length, trying to outrun my own vulnerability. I understand the impulse, but I was determined to break the pattern. No matter how uncomfortable motherhood made me, the only running I planned to do was on the treadmill.
I sat down to take some of the pressure off my throbbing leg when my mom and Jason entered.
“What do you think?” my mom said, holding up the corner of her new teal bedspread. “I might have been too jazzed on Sudafed when I chose the color.”
“Love it,” I lied.
“It’s maybe a little bright,” Jason said, “but—”
My mom’s face started to fall and I stopped Jason before he could finish.
“No, baby. It’s perfect.”
Like judging one of my mom’s boyfriends as a kid, weighing in on her decorating was pointless and would only hurt her feelings. I found it
The five of us headed down the manicured main road lined with Cook Island pines to Manele Bay.
“Don’t worry, Sid, I’m deleting all the angles where you look like a total fatso,” my mom called over her shoulder.
I looked at Jason. After six years of marriage, he still couldn’t help but register shock at the Moc’s candor.
“And you wonder why you had an eating disorder,” he said under his breath.
When we arrived at the condo, my mom walked us through all the changes she’d made since our last visit. She pointed out the refurbished teak lawn chairs, the marble countertops, and Rocky’s custom canopy bed. The bed stopped me in my tracks. I’d always wanted one as a kid, though I’m not sure I’d ever shared that information with my mom, as I was living full-time with my father by the time I was of canopy-bed age.
When my sister and I were eleven and twelve, my mom suggested we leave San Diego and move to Arizona to live with my dad because she didn’t think she could handle us anymore. Though devastating at the time, I channeled my feelings of rejection into more productive pursuits, like becoming my dad’s girlfriend. By my twenties it was something I could talk about rationally with my therapist (when I wasn’t talking about being my dad’s girlfriend), self-diagnosing my abandonment issues with an eye-roll and a dismissive laugh. I felt nothing about it because, I told myself, I felt nothing about her.
But I couldn’t deny feeling a sting as I locked eyes with Rocky. He probably had the scooter I always wanted, too—and the hot-pink Rollerblades, and the giant lips phone, and the beeper with the clear case. I squeezed Sid’s little body like a Capri Sun and walked into the guest bedroom to drink him in, opting out of the tour.
“Choppy! Wait up! This is the best part,” she said, like a little kid about to attempt a stunt on the monkey bars. Jason continued without me. My mom was too engrossed in her sconces to notice.
“Sconces can really make or break a room,” I heard her say through the wall.
The Moc was always renovating whatever place she currently called home. At least once every six months I’d get an e-mail with pictures of new backsplashes for her kitchen, new tiles for her shower. Each time, she’d become utterly engrossed in the process. And yet, once it was done, she’d inevitably find a reason to shed her skin and move somewhere else. As a child, we moved every year, sometimes to a different state, sometimes just down the block. For as long as I’d known her, my mom’s environment was in flux. And in her younger years, this included the players in it. Both as a homeowner and as a woman, she was restless and fickle. She could be the adoring doting parent one minute and a total stranger the next.
I recognize some of the same instincts in myself. Like her, I too have a track record of cutting relationships short, keeping people at arm’s length, trying to outrun my own vulnerability. I understand the impulse, but I was determined to break the pattern. No matter how uncomfortable motherhood made me, the only running I planned to do was on the treadmill.
I sat down to take some of the pressure off my throbbing leg when my mom and Jason entered.
“What do you think?” my mom said, holding up the corner of her new teal bedspread. “I might have been too jazzed on Sudafed when I chose the color.”
“Love it,” I lied.
“It’s maybe a little bright,” Jason said, “but—”
My mom’s face started to fall and I stopped Jason before he could finish.
“No, baby. It’s perfect.”
Like judging one of my mom’s boyfriends as a kid, weighing in on her decorating was pointless and would only hurt her feelings. I found it
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