Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

My seeds are sprouting in two wombs
Hank Pellissier, giver of sperm, is about to receive. Last heard from while contemplating insemination, he's now got a girl coming with the wife and a boy on the way with the lesbian gal pal.
By Hank Pellissier
[10/12/99]

Dump the big bang, bring on the blue ox
Kansas isn't going far enough with changes to its science curriculum
By Vicki Rosenzweig
[10/11/99]

Cold plunges and sport singing: Life in a Russian kindergarten
A wee New Yorker is sent to Rodnik, a temple of rigidity and complex grammar. And he loves it.
By Mary MacVean
[10/11/99]

Who was Carolyn Keene?
An interview with Mildred Wirt Benson, the original ghostwriter for the Nancy Drew mystery novels.
By Amy Benfer
[10/08/99]

Fathers, sons and football
I spent my NFL career struggling to escape the long arm of my judgmental father -- and the coaches who took his place. Was I fated to subject my sons to the same treatment?
By Pat Toomay
[10/08/99]

Complete archives for Mothers Who Think

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Riding home from school when he is 5, Julian says, "Mom, I have a choosing question for you and you have to pick one."

"OK. Shoot."

"If you have the choice, if you could fly like a bird or swim like a fish under water for as long as you wanted, which would you choose? And you can't say 'either.'"

"Give me a minute," I say. "OK. Flying."

"Not me," says Julian, "I'd choose swimming, because then I'd get rid of one of my deaths. I could never drown."

A temblor of memory jolts me to readiness. It could happen anytime.

Only once did I tell friends, fellow mothers, about Liu Yen's prophesy. They checked their own palms. Only one had a break in her life line. "Look at this," she said, full of reassurance, "and here I am, still alive." But what she was forgetting and I was remembering was the haunting story she'd once told us about how, while traveling in a foreign country, she was raped at knife point.

When he is 7, I hold a private vigil at circus school, sitting on an icy concrete bench, watching Julian's body fly in a great arc on the trapeze that, like a sinking pendulum, slowly lowers him to the safety net. The pendulum weights time, and I hold my breath through every slow swing, every stretched second.

I keep meaning to ask Wendy how often they check the circus school's trapeze, how recently they have inspected the condition of the lines, the riggings, the metal spools over which the lines slide as spotters pull, hold, and release. Watching Julian on the trapeze, I calculate the effect of one of the ropes jamming or splitting. It's the remaining rope that would do the damage. It would send Julian in a 45-degree trajectory outside of the safety net. If one of the spotters is distracted by a voice calling, a fly on her neck, what happens to the rope? Is there a safety catch that would hold? When Julian lands, I exhale.

A few weeks after circus classes began, I get a phone call. "There has been an accident. We are closing the circus school until further notice -- to check the equipment, make sure it's safe." Later I learn that an accident, through no fault of the school's, caused a young woman's death. I try not to think of the prophesy, but when I look at Julian I think: For now he is safe. There is more time.

For Julian's friend Mila's 7th birthday, she has a gypsy party. The girls are barefoot, all bangles and flowery skirts, with eye-shadow, rouge and lipstick calling attention to their innocence. Julian is a 7-year-old buccaneer in short black pants, one of my scarves wrapped around his waist, and his black felt pirate vest on top of one of my white blouses. A torn and faded blue bandana is tied across his forehead, blond spikes sneaking out.

After I drop him off, the fortune teller pulls up in a beat-up Datsun. I watch her wrangle herself and all her gear out the door of the car. She wears a colorful flouncy skirt, a white peasant's blouse, and jewelry that sings with gold coins. She also wears sneakers and carries a boom box.

Mila's parents tell me later how the children watched in silence as she turned the tarot cards. They were rapt as they listened to her describe who each child was and what might become of them.

"I am a knight!" Julian swoons when I pick him up. "I don't remember his name, but he discovers important things. He's also a leader," he says, "I think."

His bandana is turned around so that the knot is over one eyebrow, and his vest is half torn off his shoulder. He is breathless, running up the stairs and into our house.

"And see this?" he says, holding up his hand, palm to me. "I have a lifeline on my hand."

I breathe.

"Here, give me your hand. I'll show you yours," he says, opening my hand, then without looking, turning his eyes to his own.

I wait.

"But see this?" he says. "Mine stops here, then it keeps going over there. That means I'm going to have an accident or something someday."

Another breath.

Halfway through a box of raisins he looks up, into the space above his head and says to no one, "Maybe I'll discover something really good. Maybe I'll find some treasures."

I haven't seen Liu Yen since she left for school eight years ago. But the stone she threw is close enough now for me to see its pitted surface. There is a crack through its middle, and a shard has flown into Julian's hands. He caught it without so much as a scratch, and I watch the rest of it spin through space, lighter now, flawed now, and within my reach.

salon.com | Oct. 13, 1999

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

  Get a printer-friendly version

  E-mail a friend about this article

  Backflip this article to find it again

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Search Salon