A Near Miss

Frances does not go over to play at C's house as often as she would like, for various logistical reasons, the most important of which to date has been the toilet. Specifically, their bathroom is not equipped for a person of such small stature to use it on their own (and why should it be?), and I don't know who would help her in my absence. There was, on one of their earliest playdates, an Incident; and it caused Frances great shame and embarassment, so since that time the rule has been that she can go to play for an hour, after she uses our bathroom, and then I go pick her up, because that's about as long as I can count on her bladder lasting. Which is fine; she's my kid, it's my job.

But. Over the holidays, C was pet-sitting her aunt's pomeranian, a round furball that looked more like a stuffed toy than a pet and, as you can imagine, Frances was entranced. I let her go over to play and started the laundry, counting myself lucky to have some unforeseen free time to do it in. As I've mentioned before my apartment does not have in-suite laundry but the laundry room is right across the hall from my upstairs door, so except for its hours (8 am to 10 pm daily) there is no inconvenience.

A couple from Russia (there are many, many Russian immigrants in this apartment complex) was doing their laundry at the same time; the man turned to me and says, "Is that your baby?" I look out and, indeed, there are Frances's face and hands pressed to the glass door separating our block from C's--this glass door is right outside C's upstairs door, so she can't have been there for more than a moment. I grab my laundry room keys and open the door for her; "Why aren't you playing at C's?"

"I had something very important to tell you," she says.

We go into our apartment. "Oh? What was that?"

"C likes her dog a lot. It is a very cute doggie. It kissed me! Kisses are nice." (We'd had the dog and C over for a bit before Frances went to her house, and Frances walked the dog--small enough for Frances to walk on a leash--around the ground floor. When the dog stopped to lick Frances's fingers, she looked positively ecstatic. "He kissed me!" she said, voice full of wonder, and held her fingers out in front to contemplate them. Her first boyfriend (or girlfriend) is going to be hard-pressed to top that reaction.)

"That's true, I can see that."

"Maybe someday I can get a doggie."

My lips twitch. Earlier that very day, on hearing about this situation, a friend of mine had predicted that this request would be forthcoming. He was right. "Maybe someday. When you're a little older."

"OK."

"Are you done at C's?"

"No, I told her I was coming back."

"OK. I'll walk you back there."

I do this--two doors down in the upstairs hallway, and thank the gods for that hallway in wintertime. Only be for long enough to finish the laundry--to get everything out of the dryer and back into the apartment, and then I will go get her. But before the laundry clock is up there is a heavy knock on the upstairs door. I expect it to be C, or maybe C's grandmother (her mother is working) with Frances, and so open it with a smile.

It is not C, nor is it C's grandmother. It is the newest apartment complex superintendant or whatever she is, she helps out in the rental office and I've met her once or twice. She is tall, very slim, with long blond hair of exactly the shade you imagine when you hear "blond"; very pretty, in a Cover Girl cosmetics way. One can imagine the faux-Manhattan skyline behind her in a print advertisement exhorting one to buy their newest mascara or lipstick, with a wholesome toothy smile on her face. Beside her is Frances.

"Frances!" I say. "Why aren't you playing at C's?"

"Well I was," she say. "And then I wanted to tell you something."

"OK. Come in." I don't know what I am feeling. Missed dread, maybe. The joint revelation that something very bad could have happened; but it didn't, because there she is, wanting to tell me something. The new superintendant-or-whatever stares at me, obviously expecting some greater reaction. "A man found her," she says, "wandering around in the L block. He called me."

"Thank you."

Frances comes in past my legs. "I wanted to tell you, Mummy. I have something to tell you."

"Just a second." My heart is beating fast. This woman is expecting something from me; it's clear on her face that she thinks I'm a terrible mother right now, from whatever response it is I am lacking. I should be effusive? But she's fine, isn't she? Standing by my legs, wanting to tell me something. I should be relieved? Was I supposed to think she was missing? But she was playing at a friend's, and I thought she was supervised.

"You forgot your camera again." A stupid thing to say. "Why--why aren't you still at C's?"

"I left."

"Clearly."

I should be afraid? But she's fine, she's right here. I should be apologetic? But she was playing at a friend's! She shouldn't have been playing at a friend's, maybe? Am I supposed to feel caught out, guilty? Because she looks only two, I should have been there with her, supervising her myself?

Once when I took her to the Zoo, and brought her into the kid's area where there is a big treehouse with a big slide, and I walked her to the top of the slide and then taken the stroller to meet her at the bottom, she went missing. I stood there and she did not emerge, although other children did. Checked the top again--not there. Checked the bottom--not there. Checked the top and the bottom again--not there. How does a child go missing between the top and the bottom of an enclosed slide in a play structure? I checked the entire kid zoo, every exhibit, imagining myself explaining to her father that somehow I had lost Frances at the zoo, somewhere between the top and the bottom of the slide. Frances was nowhere. How could she be nowhere? I checked the top and bottom of the slide again; growing frantic. Where could she be? She had to be somewhere. I approached a few strangers and asked them, have you seen a girl about this big, blond hair, glasses, wearing an orange t-shirt? No, they all said. I ran around again, checking every exhibit, and coming around a corner saw a cluster of adults gathered around a child. "Where's your Mommy?" one of them asked.

"Frances!" The crowd parted and I hugged her. "Where were you? Where did you go?" The terror broke and I cried; I'd been so worried and now there she was and now I was crying.

"She was at the bottom of the slide," one of the strange adults said.

"I waited for you and you didn't come," said Frances, crying too.

I said nothing. I couldn't speak, in any case. I just hugged her. And I remembered (and maybe you do too) all the times when I was a small child shopping with my mother, following her boots or shoes around the mall, and looking up to realize that it wasn't my mother after all I'd been following, and trying to find her, and failing, and wondering if I would never be found again, and maybe I would have to live somehow in the shopping centre, maybe sleeping on the mattresses in the department store and eating the free samples in the supermarket; until I was found. I'd never before understood the violence of my mother's reaction when she found me. "I was worried sick," I finally said.

This was different. I'd only found out she was missing in the very instant she'd been found, both halves of the dramatic tale presented in the denouement. Yet this very pretty woman expected the traditional conclusion, me clutching Frances to my breast and telling her I was worried sick.

What I am, at that moment, is furious--she was at a friend's, she was supposed to be supervised, she was not supposed to be sent to walk home on her own--she can't open those big glass doors separating blocks so how she got all the way down to L is a mystery, someone else must have opened all of them for her--and if she walked out of C's house on her own someone should have come to tell me. The first time--she wandered out the upstairs door and no one had time to notice, maybe, and were waiting for her to come straight back in; but two times in an hour? I can't show that to this beautiful girl with her own two daughters at home who clearly, clearly, is thinking I am not right in the head right then. But I am furious. I want to know why my little girl was wandering around L block by herself, when I thought she was safe at her friend's. I want to know why no one walked her down the two doors to find her house, when she is only four for god's sake, and just learning to read; I want to know why no one made sure she got home safely. I do that when C comes to play at my house and C is eight. And I know C's family is Russian and (from Ponderosa Jennifer) that Russian culture is a little different when it comes to child-rearing and C's grandmother successfully reared children there presumably with much less supervision than I have come to believe is necessary. However. None of this is helping, in that moment.

"Thank you," I say again to the superintendant-or-whatever. With the shock still rigid on her face, she walks away, and I close the door.

I am still furious. Furious at them, or myself? Not sure at that point. Why did I walk her back over? Why didn't I ask why she'd been allowed to come out into the hallway by herself? Why did I assume it was a fluke and they knew better? Why didn't they look at that glass door separating our blocks and realize she could not possibly open it for herself? But the fury is certainly not Frances's, who can't be expected to know better, so I calmly sit down and let her tell me this very important thing she needed to say.

"The doggie is so cute, Mummy. C really loves her. It is really C's doggie, not her aunt's. I would really like a doggie, Mummy."

"Maybe someday," I say again. "When you're older."

I imagine going down the hall to bang on their door and demand an explanation; but C is a child, and C's mother is at work, and C's grandmother's english is poor. It would not be a fruitful conversation. It would lead to bruised feelings without hope of resolution and possibly a rupture of Frances's one friendship in our apartment block. And after all, isn't everything fine? Isn't Frances at that very moment asking me for a pet doggie? C is a good kid; it's just that she's a kid. She can't be expected to be responsible for Frances's welfare.

I'll have to speak to her mother, I think, dreading it already. Lord, the potential pitfalls in such a conversation--the potential for misunderstanding and self-righteousness and hurt. But she speaks english and she's an adult and I know her fairly well by now, so C's mother it will have to be, even though she wasn't even there. Because it's clear to me that the one thing I can no longer do is allow Frances to go to play at C's house, not even for an hour. Not until I can be sure that someone will make sure she gets home safely if she decides she wants to leave.

Posted by Andrea at January 9, 2008 7:36 AM under Friends and Others , Me , Mothers and Anti-Mothers , Single Momming

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