Read Online Hush Little Baby by Suzanne Redfearn - Free Book Online

zillion things to get done, but I can’t focus and I can’t breathe and I need a time-out.
    The wind gusts like dragon’s breath swirling the sand and the sea. While overhead, gulls and pelicans float on the breeze as though inflated with helium, the air pregnant and billowing with the promise of spring.
    A pair of lovers sits on a blanket to the right, so I walk to the left, sink to the ground, and dig my toes into the sand to find the coolness below.
    My head and heart throb.
    I’m a fool. I’m a coward. I hate myself for what I’ve become, and I’m so afraid.
    How have I let it get to this point? Why have I stayed so long?
    Fear.
    Yes, but the fear, real fear, came later. I stayed even before I was too scared to leave.
    The truth makes me want to rip at my skin with self-hatred, the reasons I’ve stayed so asinine that I’m loath to confess them even to myself.
    Pride, obstinacy, vanity, arrogance.
    A pelican dives from the sky, changing course a moment before impact to skim gracefully across the water, then rises again for the sky.
    The phantasm I’ve created of my life is a masterpiece of deceit, easy to believe because most of the time it’s real. I look at the bracelet on my wrist—love. I feel the bruise beneath my shirt pulse with my breath—insanity. One flaunted, the other concealed.
    I rest my head on my knees and stare at the grains of sand between my feet, each completely different from the next, but completely unremarkable.
    A squealing giggle causes me to lift my head. A mother chases a toddler toward the water. The mom grabs the girl’s hand and together they flee with a shriek from the wash running up the beach. The girl looks something like Addie, same light skin and bird-boned body. The girl hesitates at the edge—she’s not like Addie. The mother pulls her back toward the froth laughing. And I’m not like the mother. It’s so effortless for her. Over and over she runs with her daughter from the water, completely content with the tediousness of the game.
    I couldn’t do that. I don’t want to do that. Gordon’s the one who plays, runs, romps with the kids. He loves doing dad things—volunteering in the classroom, helping with projects, coaching. He’s better at packing their lunches, organizing their activities, wiping their noses.
    I love my kids, but I get easily bored doing kid things and mom things. It’s horrible to admit, but my favorite moments of motherhood are when they’re asleep, when I can stare at them and cherish them without having to tend to them or pretend I’m enjoying myself. When they’re not demanding and I’m not failing. Of course, I allege the opposite, lament how I wish I could spend more time with them and rave about our wonderful weekends and how quickly they flew by. While, inside, I’m so relieved to be at work I’m almost giddy. But here, with only the seagulls and the sand, I don’t pretend to be anything but what I am—and I am not like the mother in front of me; this ugly, shameful truth is in part why I’ve stayed. I don’t want to have to be like her, to go it alone, be a single parent, not be able to escape.
    I always assumed motherhood was something that descended naturally as soon as you had a child. Then after Drew was born, I thought it came with time. Now, I’ve given up. I don’t know how other moms instinctively know what their children need and how to care for them. I don’t know how to relate to my kids, how to play pretend, how to live in their world or roll around in the mud. I didn’t get excited when Drew went potty for the first time or Addie said her first word. I’m happy for them, but these are their accomplishments—milestones I take for granted they will have. After all, eventually don’t we all learn to walk, talk, and poop in the toilet? I don’t take any more credit for those achievements than I do for Addie’s curly red hair or Drew’s blue eyes.
    I’m not a good mother.
    I try. I do the requisite