A Mother's Love

            by Amanda Eyges

 

“Watch me, Mommy,” I hear from across the playground.

“I’m watching, Lucy,” I shout, looking up from my magazine and pulling my attention away from my conversation with the other moms.

I watch my 6-year-old daughter’s blond hair as she swings from monkey bar to monkey bar on the play structure.  I watch as if I have never seen this before, in awe of her independence and agility.  The mothers around me tell me how beautiful and smart she is, and I know without them even telling me.  She jumps down from the last bar, waves to me, and then runs to go play with her friends on the swing set.

“Jenna, did you hear the news? It’s all just so scandalous,” says Pamela Levy from down the bench.

“No, what happened?” I say, perking up with interest.  All the mothers gasp and chatter amongst themselves for a moment, in shock that I don’t know the gossip.

“Angela Clark has apparently disappeared. Her husband can’t find her anywhere.  Everyone fears the worst but I think that she just left poor old Tom.  She was such a whore you know…”

I realize that this subject is once again just a source of entertainment and stop listening immediately.  As Pamela’s voice fades away, my attention goes back to my magazine, until I feel someone watching me.  I lift my head and look around, first at the mothers beside me who are still engaged in their conversation, then at my daughter on the swings.  She is smiling and laughing as a man pushes her swing back and forth.  He is looking at me with a friendly smile on his face.  I smile back at him as I think of how long it has been since I flirted with a stranger and then look away, teasing him with my childish behavior.  I slowly look up at him again but only to find myself feeling oddly rejected because he is no longer looking at me.  He is looking at my daughter with the same friendly smile.  How pathetic am I? I guess being alone for a while will cause you to confuse a smile with flirting.  The women beside me have ended their conversation and one of them, Jane Collins, asks me to help her load her new stroller into her minivan.  I agree and ask the other moms to watch Lucy while I’m gone.

 As we walk over to her car, we discuss important issues like Brad and Angelina’s relationship and the results of the Grammy’s this year.  We finally get the damn thing into her car and I can leave, but not until I see the new pair of earrings Jerry gave her and realize how talented her youngest son Jeremy is at soccer.  I finally pull myself away and head back to the playground and to my magazine that, sadly enough, is the only thing that I can really relate to lately. I join the mothers only to hear another vicious story, this time about Jane (now that she is out of hearing range) and how she has struggled for almost 3 years to get pregnant with a girl.  They talk about how sad and pathetic she is, lugging around her 6 hyperactive boys.  Once again I immediately tune them all out.

I sit down on the bench for a minute and start to relax until I realize that I can’t see any blond hair.  I look around, straining my neck to see every angle of the park.  Where is Lucy?  I look from my seat for a couple of minutes and then rise to my feet in a frantic search of the playground, quickly running from play set to play set.  When I realize that I can’t find her my breath becomes irregular.  I just left for a minute and…

My head starts to spin and it doesn’t get any better when the spiraling mat below the swing set starts to spin with it. The mothers are frightened.  Where is she?  Where could my little girl have gone?

 

One of the mothers is holding my head when I come to and two others are asking me questions.  I can’t hear anything around me; I can only see their lips and the trees moving.  Everything is silent except for my own heart beating loudly in my head.  I feel sick but I don’t know why.  As soon as I realize what has just happened all the sounds come back, flooding my brain too quickly to piece together. 

“Jenna, what happened? Are you ok?”

“I left for just a minute.  Where is she?  I asked you to watch her.  Who watched her? Someone took her.  Where is she? Where is she?” I plead with them suddenly feeling wetness from my eyes and on my cheeks.

“Honey, calm down. Who in god’s name are you talking about?” Pamela says, looking over her shoulder at the other mothers with a look of slight sadness on her other wise cold facial features.

“MY DAUGHTER!!! I told you to look after her while I was gone.  Who took her? You sit here all day and gossip about celebrities that you don’t even know or worse, about people who could actually be in life threatening danger like poor Angela Clark,” I begin to grab Pamela’s shoulders very tightly, needing to blame someone.  “All you do is sit here and you can’t even watch a kid or use common sense for a minute.”

“Calm down Jenna, please.  We’ll get you some help and we’ll help you find her but you’ve got to calm down,” says Pamela, suddenly stricken with terror.

She calms me down by telling me that she is probably over on the baseball field and that the other people at the park will help us search.

 

When we can’t find her I begin to seriously panic, until I see the man that was pushing Lucy on the swings earlier.  He is looking under the bleachers with the rest of the search party.  Before I can think, I am lunging across the baseball diamond ready to attack.  The look of unexpected freight on his face stops me in my tracts. 

“Where is she?” I scream, holding pepper spray from my purse to his face.

“Hey now lady don’t go crazy,” the man says with a look of fear and self-defense staring my pepper spray in the face.

“I don’t know but the second I find a clue I’ll be the first to tell you.  She couldn’t have gone far because she’s smart and…”

“You have her I know it, where is she?  Take me to her.”

“I really don’t understand what you are talking about.  I was pushing her on the swings but then she wanted to get off and play somewhere else or something.  I’m sorry but I really have no idea what happened to her,” he says, shaking while a bead of sweat rolls down his face.

 I can’t think of anything but her golden hair and beautiful blue eyes but now everything is slipping away, right before my eyes.  I think of her sweet, innocent voice and I swear I can almost hear it. 

“Mommy! Mommy!”

I look around franticly, feeling the need to hold my baby girl, only to find a different child crying for her mother.  I sink to my knees, feeling weak with no sight of her.

 

Three hours pass and Pamela suggests that we go to the police station to file a missing person’s report.  I can’t give up this easily on Lucy.  I feel that I have to keep searching until the mothers convince me that the sooner we go to the police, the greater chance they have of finding her safe and alive.  We begin walking to the car and this seems to satisfy the rest of the people still helping us search the park.  All of the other mothers help me to Pamela’s car except one, a woman by the name of Jane Collins.

I watch her quickly scurry to her car, not looking back once.  She gets into her gray minivan, sits in it for a minute or two and then spins her body in the front seat to tend to something in the back.  I look into the back seat only to find Lucy, slumped back, motionless with her eyes closed.

I scream out, pointing towards the car and pushing past the mothers to get to her.  Is she alive? I’ve got to get to her, I think almost out loud as the car starts and its lights flicker on.

I finally get to the car and pound furiously on the passenger side window.  Jane’s face turns toward me, wide-eyed with fear and craze.  I run along side the car as she tries to drive away, pulling at the sliding side door handle.

The handle gives and sends the door flying towards the back of the car.  I reach in, holding the seats for stability and pull my daughter’s limp body towards my own.  I hold her as I reach for the drive’s seat.  The car is moving quickly now and I try to gain control of the car but only succeed in crashing it into the nearest tree.

As smoke begins seeping out of the hood of the car, I hold and kiss Lucy gently on her face as if each kiss is life saving.  She whimpers and opens her eyes enough to left me know that she is alive.

 

It is just me and my daughter in my thoughts for a moment until my mind catches up with my body and I realize what has truly just happened.  There is now a crowd of people around the broken mess of people and car parts.

 Nothing but tears follows.  I can’t hear anymore, my mind can only fear the worst.  I feel only sadness and intense anger.

I turn towards the crushed front part of the car, still on the floor of the back seat, to see that she is sitting in the drivers seat crying.  I sit there, holding Lucy, with the whole playground of people beside me wanting to know just as badly as I do.

“Why?” I ask, my body shaking as I fight back more tears.

“I was jealous, okay,” Jane says lashing out into a tissue.  “I wanted to have a girl so badly and I can’t.  I bet you didn’t know that I tried for 3 years straight and I just thought…” She looks at me from out of the corner of her eye, finding no sympathy in my face, then lowers her head down slowly and cries into her steering wheel.

The police arrive with screaming sirens and flashing lights and tale Jane away without even a word.