When You Were Mine

“Not this time. I’ve got an appointment in Bloomfield. Are you okay to walk home?”

“Oh… yes.” I feel as if I’ve been let out of prison, but it also feels as if I’m in free fall. Susan is abandoning me. I’m used to her walking me into the house, chatting with Ally while I sit with Dylan. It’s only happened twice, but already it has become a routine. “So… is that how it will go from now on?”

“That’s the hope.” Her smile widens, as if to include me. “The goal for all of us, Beth, is reunification.”

“Right.” I feel weirdly nervous about seeing Dylan alone, and that makes me anxious. How can I be nervous? And yet how can Susan drop that bombshell about me being too intense, and then in the next breath tell me she’s not coming in with me?

“Beth?”

I realize I’m just sitting there, staring. “Sorry.” I try for a smile. “Thanks.”

And then I am out of the car and walking up to Ally’s house as Susan drives off, feeling strangely light, a bit empty, as if I am missing something, my purse or even an arm.

“Beth!” Ally looks surprised to see me even though this visit has been arranged. I realize, as she cranes her neck to look behind me, that she’s been expecting Susan too.

“I came alone. Susan had another appointment, and she’s said that my visits with Dylan can be unsupervised.”

“Oh…” She hesitates, and I wonder if she thinks I’m lying, and just like that, I’m annoyed. I’m reminded of how much I don’t like this woman.

Last week, I recall, she fussed around, hovering over Dylan and me until Susan called her back and asked for a cup of coffee. I saw that Dylan had a new lunchbox, to match his backpack. I knew he’d started school, but the sight of that shiny lunchbox unnerved me. And when I asked Ally about school, she was way too enthusiastic, telling me how absolutely wonderfully he was doing, which made me feel worse. Maybe it shouldn’t have, but it did.

Now, without Susan here, I drop any pretense of friendliness. “May I see my son, please?” I ask with pointed iciness, and she blinks.

“Yes, of course.” She steps aside and I stride in, looking for Dylan. “He’s in the family room,” Ally says, trotting behind me as I head to the back of the house.

The house is even nicer than I remembered from the last two weeks. Everything smells lemony and clean, with underlying homely aromas of coffee and dinner cooking—something beefy and comforting that makes my mouth water—and also makes me unreasonably angrier.

I

take a deep breath, willing myself to be calm. It’s a good thing that Dylan is in a place like this. I’d much rather he was in a place like this, warm and clean and comforting, than somewhere that was dirty or dangerous or just plain unwelcoming. Of course it is, and yet still, my hackles rise.

And then I see Dylan. He’s curled up on the sofa, watching Wild Kratts on PBS Kids. He’s holding his rabbit by its good ear, and he is absorbed in the show. He doesn’t even see me come in, unlike the last two weeks when he ran to give me a hug.

For a second, I stand there, feeling lost, rootless. I watch my son, looking like any other kid. He’s wearing clothes I don’t recognize—a striped polo shirt and khaki pants. His hair is brushed to the side in a way I never comb it. His gaze is on the screen. I can’t speak.

“Dylan,” Ally says, seeming to sense something of what I feel—although I’m not even sure what I feel. Am I happy or sad, resentful or thankful? It is as if my world is a snow globe that someone just turned upside down and shook hard, or a kaleidoscope whose image has just changed, so for a second it’s all brilliant colors and swirls that don’t make sense. I also feel rage—red-hot and real, coursing through me in a river, but I’m not even sure what I’m angry about.

“Dylan,” Ally says again, raising her voice, and finally my son looks at me. Our gazes lock and clash and for a second nothing happens. He just stares while Ally watches and again I feel as if the floor, the whole earth, is falling away from me. I reach out to the kitchen island to steady myself, my hand sliding across the slippery granite.

“Dylan,” I say, and it almost sounds like a whimper.

“Dylan, aren’t you so excited to see your mom?” Ally interjects in an overly cheerful voice, and I want to slap her. I don’t need her interference, well-intentioned though it might be.

Slowly, Dylan uncurls himself on the sofa, still clutching his rabbit.

I walk towards him, and all the while Ally watches, a spectator to our sad little drama.

“Hey, Dylan.” I sit next to him and touch his head briefly, messing up his child’s combover, so his hair springs back across his forehead and slides into his eyes. He looks more like my son now, but then he shakes his head and pushes the hair back, and somehow that stings. It’s only been a week since my last visit, and already he’s changed so much. How? Why?

“How have you been, Dyl?” I ask, unable to keep from touching him. My fingers skim his cheek and then I put my arm around his shoulders and draw him closer. He comes, but after a second’s hesitation that cuts deep, even though I am trying not to let it. I’m already losing him, after just a few weeks. What is it—he—going to be like after three months?

I swallow hard. I can feel Ally staring.

“Why don’t we go for a walk, Dylan?”

“Oh…” Ally trails off uncertainly. She is probably wondering if I’m allowed. But Susan suggested it, and in any case, I’m tired of feeling like I need permission from some stranger to simply be with my child.

“Would you like that, Dylan?” I ask as I reach for his hand. He lets me take it, lets me draw him up to standing. “Where’s your coat?”