Part 13: Susan

Susan was used to carrying in all the groceries by herself. She had accepted that it was easier, in the long run, than trying to get James or Becca to help her. The parenting experts would surely chide her for that, tell her that she was allowing them to Dictate the Terms, to Be In Control of the Situation, but that was precisely why she didn’t seek out the advice of parenting experts. They probably would have suggested a chore chart, or some complex system of Privileges and Consequences (where a Consequence was the loss of a Privilege, or vice-versa), or some token economy in which she was simultaneously banker, employer, IRS, Fed chairman, and mint - all of which were supposed to be good for children. They had plenty to say about Children, but her own kids were just people - and no one on earth has ever devised a good system for people, Susan thought. 

The moment you think you’ve got one, some young upstart shows up to smash it and try again. Louis XVI probably thought things were going pretty well in 1788 or so. (Was that because of the special on Napoleon or was that an original thought?) And then a few years later, you had Robespierre and the Reign of Terror, and of course the Emperor himself, the battles of Leipzig and Waterloo . . . 

But why recite French history to yourself when you’re carrying eight full plastic bags of groceries up the stairs? What did it matter? 

Susan felt vaguely that there had been some point to what she was thinking, some reason why it had come up in the first place. Did it have to do with James somehow? she wondered, seeing him in his usual habitat, at the computer in the living room, headphones on. Just where and how she had expected to find him. Consistency, predictability. That was her life. The life she had chosen. Well, as much as anyone chooses anything. 

How did she end up here, in this kitchen, putting her groceries away in this refrigerator instead of some other one? Well, David’s sister had lived here at one point, and the houses were fairly cheap, and everyone had said the schools were good . . . but what did that even mean, the schools were good? Graduation parties for fourth graders? Styrofoam cups filled with dirt? Teachers who left comments on report cards like “Rebecca sometimes forgets to follow the principles of our Shared Classroom Agreement . . . ?” 

That was it, right there. Instead of rules, they had contracts; instead of being sent to the principal’s office, students were invited to take a walk to the Listening Space. And they were all white. Susan remembered being shocked to actually see a school where everyone was white. White-for-white-people white. Sandals and socks white; camping and tennis and bologna sandwiches white. 

But all the sticker charts and circle time rituals, that was the same shit they expected her to do at home. That was how you got your kids to help you put the groceries away, apparently. But at what cost? Here she was, already done, everything in its place - ready to go sit down and unwind in front of the TV for a little bit before she had to start making dinner - and there had been no fighting whatsoever. James was still sitting blissfully unaware that the whole bringing-in-groceries experience had ever happened, probably immersed in what he thought was a deep conversation with Hannah. Becca was still in her room, probably on the phone.

Besides, could she look herself in the mirror at night after putting a smiley-face sticker on James’s chart for cleaning his room? Some of them really did that. Or maybe they didn’t; maybe it was all a facade. Sinking into the couch, Susan recalled how she felt when someone told you to close your eyes and you wanted to know if everyone else was closing their eyes too, so you peeked. One time she had done that and she had caught someone else peeking too, a boy called Wilson (but was that his first name or last name?) They had caught each other, and it was a little bit exciting. It never led to anything, but it was a nice memory, a nice moment. When was that? Where was it? She wanted to say church, but she hadn’t gone to church. But it was somewhere that felt like church - a church basement, specifically - somewhere with a vague air of authority, but temporary authority. You knew that all you had to do was endure it and soon you’d be back in the real world. But for some people, that was their world. And all you could do was wonder if it always felt for them the way it did to you. 

And those parents with the sticker charts - Susan felt stuck on them, she felt like she needed to come to some conclusion about them before she could move on, just like she had felt earlier, when she realized that thing about James at the grocery store - could their kids actually be so compliant, so desperate to please, so goddamn simple that it worked on them? Did they actually buy into the system, did they actually want to “earn” that extra screen time? Just imagine telling James he could only spend a half hour on the computer a night. Imagine telling Becca she could only call her friends after she finished her homework. It would fail, because remember - they just wanted her to be wrong. If she made a system, it would be the wrong system.

But she remembered suddenly the time Becca had gotten all upset because she didn’t use chore charts “because that’s what Ashley has at her house and Ashley gets a special privilege every week, like she gets to watch TV or have ice cream for dessert.” To this Susan had laughed and said something like, “Bec, all you do is watch TV and eat ice cream.” She heard her own voice and it sounded cold, even a little cruel. She had been talking to an eight year old, after all. 

And then, because she didn’t know when to stop: “And I bet Ashley helps her mother with the dishes once in a while.” And Becca: “Yeah when its HER DAY!” The argument had gone around in circles, cart against horse, and had ended in tears and a bedroom door being slammed, reopened, then slammed again for emphasis.

And somewhere in there, Becca had something hurtful, too, something that still created a pang inside of Susan: “Cause that’s what moms are supposed to do!” 

Susan wondered how she had responded to that. How could she have responded to that? “Oh, so I’m a bad mother now, am I?” Too melodramatic; the fight had been Becca’s passion project, not hers. “I want you to help me because you want to, not because you want a sticker!” Probably closest to what she felt, but too abstract for a child to understand. “I’m trying to manifest a different paradigm of parenting, one based more on mutual respect and communication rather than pseudo-progressive mechanisms of exerting control and ensuring obedience through the use of symbolic tokens of the child’s subservience to the adult!” Susan laughed. The monstrous memory of Becca’s comment had been defeated. Academic language, employed semi-ironically, dredged up from the classes she had taken on Semiotics and Postmodern literature before leaving school, just one semester shy of a degree, as some sort of statement against . . . 

James was walking through the living room, presumably on his way to get a drink or use the bathroom, that perpetual cycle. She should probably say something, what kind of mother would she be if she didn’t say something, but he was so closed off - she hardly knew him anymore. Or maybe she never really had. Maybe he had always been closed off, the difference was now he was opened up to other people, in another way. He spent hours on that damn computer, talking about god-knows-what, but then when he saw them in person they were uncomfortable and awkward, even by eighth grade standards. She had once seen James and Hannah both waiting for rides after school, standing four feet apart, not speaking, just both looking ahead blankly. 

It would have made a great cover for a young adult novel or something. 

But it had to be unhealthy, didn’t it? 

That was one reason she did feel guilty for not forcing them to help her with the groceries or the dishes, or doing the whole Family Dinners, let’s-all-talk-about-our-day sort of thing. Maybe she was allowing James to become some reclusive, antisocial type who would get deeper and deeper into his online world until he ended up getting into programming or hacking or creating a website devoted to curating pictures of the feet of female celebrities, or . . . 

“Hey,” she ventured. James was practically out of the living room by this point, on the first stair, and he could have easily gotten away with pretending he didn’t hear her, she didn’t have a second greeting in her, especially without a follow-up - but he did turn back. She needed something, some sort of content to the conversation. How to relate? What could she ask him about? “How’s Hannah doing?” 

“How would I know?” 

“You weren’t just talking to her? That’s surprising, I thought you guys were always talking on there.” Susan had learned not to call it IMing or messaging or (as her husband did) e-mailing; to these kids, it was just plain talking. 

“She’s at the concert with Victoria tonight,” he said, as if Susan had been the one who orchestrated this and had somehow, annoyingly, forgotten.

“Oh, right.” Susan was pretty sure this was the first she had ever heard of this concert, but it meant she ought to tread carefully around James tonight. When Hannah wasn’t around, he was volatile. She likened him to a junkie in need of a fix. Amazing that one person can have that effect on others. And it wasn’t just James - from the looks of it, a lot of people seemed to respond that way to Hannah Pratt. 

What was it? She was just a girl, with dyed black hair, stylish clothes, and a nose piercing. Central casting for “emo teenager.” 

“Yeah, so I don’t know. I’m sure she’s having fun.” 

There are certain moments in life where time seems to slow down and you can see all your options, all of your possible futures spread out in front of you like you’re in a Robert Frost poem. Not as many of them as, say, the people who devise philosophical thought experiments seem to think there are, but they do happen from time to time. Susan entered one. But down every path she looked, she saw the same image: a brief spat followed by a long night of unspoken tension and anxiety. 

There was nothing she could say that would not make James mad at her. 

It was kind of a relief, really. 

No pressure. No need to beat herself up afterwards for saying the wrong thing. She could take solace in the fact that she had seen the whole thing coming, and the satisfaction of being right can often trump the unhappiness of a bad situation. Ask Jesus of Nazareth, who had to practically shout about being persecuted for like, three whole years, before anyone took the hint and actually started persecuting him. 

It was like seeing an approaching tidal wave and knowing there’s no way you’ll ever be able to outrun it, and deciding to run towards it instead. (But why was he still hovering like this? That was out of character.) And hell, maybe it would be the one time in a thousand when her predictable, systematic life would prove her wrong. 

“Did you want to go to the concert?” she asked. 

“Yeah, right,” James replied, sounding bitter but not at her. Not even thinking that it was at her. He seemed to be hovering on the edge of engagement, of elaboration; then something tipped him. “It’s an OBM concert. They’re only going because they think the lead singer’s hot. Their music’s not even good. I mean, it’s not bad, either. It’s just kinda there. But they’re, like, obsessed.” 

“Which one are they?” 

“Hannah and Victoria . . .?” 

“No, no, the band.” 

“Our Beautiful Misery. Hannah’s favorite band. And Victoria says they’re hers too but that’s just because they’re Hannah’s. She copies everything Hannah does. It’s actually super annoying. But whatever. I’m sure they’re having fun drooling over Xander Cross or whatever. I’m going to my room.” 

“You’re not --” 

“I said I’m going to my room, that means I’m going to my room.” And he was gone, leaving Susan alone once again on the couch. As far as her interactions with James went, that hadn’t been a particularly bad one. He hadn’t stormed out, maybe just light-drizzled out. And it seemed possible that he would even come out for dinner and eat with the rest of them instead of just grabbing a plate. 

And he had left the computer free. 

This was why you had children, Susan figured. They made you aware of whole worlds that you never would have known about otherwise. Things to fill up your afternoons, those tedious, directionless hours between three and six - when you are free to do anything, but have no reason to. 

She sat down in the computer seat, still uncomfortably warm and, following a random impulse, a thread of curiosity (they were rare enough these days, she might as well follow one when it did come) - she opened up the web browser, typed in Xander Cross, and began to read.