Secrets and Lies

Most of my friends, at some point or another in the past year, have asked me to start a second blog. A secret blog. “So I can get all the inside dirt on the people you never write about.” If this sentence were to continue, the ending clause would read something like “except when you’re tipsy at McMenamin’s after a reading and we’ve gotten you to say what you really think*” And because it would save them time pestering me for long emails, which I’ve been neglecting the past few months.

Of course, none of these friends ever thinks about the possibility that he or she would be a subject in the secret blog at some point, which would force me to have a secret blog which no one could read (also known as, at least pre-2001, a “journal” or sometimes a “diary”), or I’d have to write numerous secret blogs where I’d keep track of who had access to which and when, and in the annals** of which I’d construct many a clever sobriquet, things that would not be easily googled or attributed.

I’m getting tired just thinking about it.

And there’s plenty of my life that doesn’t get mentioned here (and probably more than one person is squinting at the screen right now, hoping I don’t mention Friend X or Friend Q and what he or she did, and when). But the truth is that my secrets aren’t what you’d expect.

Last week, I listened to a voicemail from Thing One and Thing Two’s after-school care center. I knew the call would come eventually and was dreading it. I knew it because I’ve fallen so behind in paying the monthly tuition, thousands of dollars behind. Thing Three’s pre-school tuition is $144 a week, and that adds up quickly to a pretty good chunk of change, and I cover that every month, more or less, and then send a little towards the other care center***, which runs about $450 or so a month. Every month, the center sends me an email saying they’ve transferred the amount to my university account, and every month I delete that email as quickly as I can. I hate thinking about it.

But there was Christmas, Thing One’s expensive asthma medication, her glasses, groceries and gas and the electricity bill from the cold months, the days I missed work without pay (a snow day, a few sick kid days) so the tuition, it got away from me, despite my best efforts. John hasn’t shared the medical costs like he promised, nor come through on his smallish child support. So I’ve been stuck. I’ve muddled through the best I can, but that effort isn’t always enough anymore.

So when I listened to the center’s accounts manager, I knew what it was about before she finished, knew I’d reached the end of my bad-credit rope. At the same time, I knew my hefty tax return was on the way, money I was counting on to catch up, at last, to buy spring and summer clothes for the kids, a few niceties for myself, and to fund my short trip to AWP. All I needed was to make it to the tax return and I’d be home free. Or close enough to breathe a little, finally.

The accounts manager told me, on the voicemail, that if I didn’t come up with a significant payment, Things One and Two would be cut off from care starting the first of March. I begin dialing her number, slowly, though I dreaded it. Partly I dreaded it because to admit you’re broke hurts. We’re not supposed to talk about money, especially not in polite conversation. But it cut to something deeper than that. Admitting I couldn’t foot my own kids’ bill meant I might not be responsible. I might not be a decent provider. I might not be a good mother.

I stopped dialing. The thought of owning up to the debt, calling her and doing it, even though I could shortly pay her, made me feel ashamed. The same way I felt when two friends, in the past few months, lent me money, significant amounts. One friend sent me money by Western Union just hours after I admitted I had nothing in my checking account, 1/8 a tank of gas, no milk in the house, and a paycheck still a week away. My cheeks burned as the cashier counted out bills, laid the fifties and twenties in a neat little stack at my hands. But I bought cereal and grapes and milk, put gallons of gas into my car. And with my typical humor, I joked to my friend that I was sorry, but I’d gambled all his money on a pony named “Lil’ Britches.”

I tucked the phone away. I was on my lunch hour and had errands to run, but instead drove east, out of the city, into the mountains that edge Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

If I was going to fix this now, with the accounts manager, I’d not only have to call her, but I’d have to call the university’s accounts office too, and explain why I had fallen so behind. Does it matter that I knew I had a lock-tight excuse? Recent divorce, three kids, a new job, ex not paying child support? The only way I could have made it better is if I said one of the kids was a leper.

But I still thought I should be able to pull it off by myself, that it said something about me, about my character, if I couldn’t.

Last night, Thing One laid in my bed, coughing with the cold she’s caught, when she mentioned her classmates’ projects. I was proud of Thing One’s oral report—the kids were to think of a topic along the theme of “Land and Water”—and the work she put into it. The First Name School gives an inordinate amount of homework (Thing One routinely does 45 minutes to an hour a night), and this oral report was in addition to that. Between the kids’ homework, Thing Two’s speech therapy, making dinner, washing and folding laundry, baths and books, it was near impossible to get that stupid oral report done. I enlisted the help of Fort Awesome, who spent an afternoon at the library with Thing One, helping her research hurricanes, how they form, where they hit, the damage they do. And I was proud of this, that Fort Awesome was helping, but also proud of the fact I spent the entire time playing puppets with Things Two and Three without getting bored while Fort Awesome and Thing One worked. Proud that Thing One was smart but also inquisitive, that she thought of the topic herself, that she was using it as a means to bring up Hurricane Katrina (and mention her dislike for President Bush and his policies, heh).

Then last night, Thing One mentioned the four parents who, that day in class, told the teacher their kids would need a computer set up for their oral reports. Because they were giving PowerPoint presentations.

Third graders. One of whom is going to give her oral report (replete with PowerPoint slides, natch) on that very elementary topic continental drift.

I called Fatally Hip Mrs. Friend Two to rant about the First Name School, the Coterie of Married Mothers there, and my general malcontent.

She said, “I think learning PowerPoint is good for kids.”

What the fuck, I thought. Doesn’t she get it? She’s a single mother. Fuck me.

“Well I don’t,” I snapped.

“Why?”

“It isn’t fair! It isn’t fair that those parents did all that work for their kids!”

“Of course it isn’t fair,” she added. “I just don’t think it’s all about that.”

Then I started crying. “I hate this,” I said.

These are the moments where I see all the work I’ve done to hold this together, all the effort it takes, all the time and energy, and I feel despondent. The threadbare, stretched-thinnedness of everyday life is hard to look at, especially when it costs so much to maintain. And if I’m honest with myself, it wasn’t just that I hated the barely veiled competitive nature of the parents, and their lackluster ways of showing it (will anyone ever think of a way to be competitive that doesn’t involve doing some assignment for her kid?), it was also that I couldn’t compete on that level. It wasn’t fair they did the work, but the thing that hurt was that I didn’t have anywhere near the resources to do what they did. Who has three hours to sit and make a goddamned PowerPoint on continental drift for their 8-year old?

I hate admitting that, too. Hate it as much as admitting I’m broke.

A secret: I haven’t sent, even written, a letter to the First Name School about Thing Two’s bus incident. The day after it happened, the principal turned on his heels when he saw me, walked quickly away, then closeted himself in his office. His secretary took care of me. I felt dismissed, excused. It’s the way I’ve felt the last 18 months there.

In second grade, Thing One’s reading and math scores were abysmal. “Her father and I just separated,” I told her teacher. “I think that might have something to do with it.”

I can’t remember what her teacher said, but she used the same kindly dismissive tone month after month. Thing One was distracted, couldn’t concentrate, her scores fluctuated wildly. Second grade ended with her scores low, and Thing One being convinced she wasn’t that smart. Over the summer, the school sent a tutor to help her with her reading, and I looked into vision therapy for her, though I couldn’t afford it then.

This year, her teacher suggested Thing One should perhaps be tested for special ed services, jumped more firmly on the bandwagon when she learned her brother was autistic. “We just moved,” I said. “Her dad and I were just divorced. She’s had a rough couple of years.”

I’m not sure she even heard me.

Last night, Thing One’s report card came home. In every area, she met the expectations, except in a few of the reading areas. In those, she exceeded the expectations. A note was included, detailing her performance. It said Thing One was expected to surpass grade-level benchmarks in most of the areas by the end of the year. This past week, she picked up a 5th-grade level book and started reading it without a problem.

I kissed Thing One’s head, told her she had done well. I was happy, proud of her. No, that’s a lie. I was angry, too. I told Friend One later, on the phone, “I hate the way that school makes me feel, how they dismissed me. Two years. I kept saying the same thing. They have a full-time behavioral specialist. Why didn’t I tell them to send Thing One to his office? Why didn’t they think of it?”

Friend One asked me what it was I wanted.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Friend One was quiet, an unusual state for her. Usually when she's quiet she's either angry or asleep. Sometimes both.

“I mean, all that worry I had. They didn’t help me. It didn’t matter what I said. They didn’t help Thing One.”

“What is it you want?”

“I want a fucking apology.” I said.

This is true in one sense, and when I said it last night, it hurt. But it’s also true that I want an apology for being forced to face the fact I wanted a daughter who was as smart as I was when I was 7 or 8. That I only know one kind of smart, and I don’t know how to gauge or value the rest very well. Maybe I deserve to be dismissed, I had thought. I’m afraid if I write that letter, they’ll dismiss me again.

Out in the hillsides, that was what I feared when I thought of calling the accounts manager. I don’t want to be thought of as just another irresponsible parent. A single mother. A welfare queen****. I wanted to shake the accounts manager, say I’m trying so she’d know I meant it, so she’d understand how much work I was doing.

What to say? Another secret? I called her back, of course. At the end of the day, I’ll only abdicate responsibility for so long. I hated the way she started the conversation, the way, when I explained the situation (sans leper child), I could hear the pity in her voice. So I did something unusual for me. I stopped her and said as gently as I could, “I don’t need you to apologize. I just want you to help me find a workable solution.” The pity dried up. She was kind to me, helpful even. Not dismissive.

And, you know, I think I feel that strongly worded email coming on.*****

*tm

*As if that requires the consumption of alcohol on my part.

**No, it isn’t that word. Perverts.

***The Things Three attend two different care centers, something I hope to change this summer.

****The only kind of welfare I ever received was food stamps, and man do I miss those sometimes.

****Listened to The Postal Service’s version of “Against All Odds” while I wrote this, and God Damn, it rocks.

Comments

[Tragically Hip Single Mother]

Hooray!

[Chelsea]

Dear *tm,

I read this almost as soon as it was posted, (as I always do) and afterwards I found myself unsure of how to respond to such an elegant and vulnerable post. If I was there and we were the sort of friends you seem to have surrounded yourself with, I would commiserate, yell, listen, pray and generally be whatever support I could.

I too have been and "avoider", it gets to be a habit when we are surrounded by scary and suffocating circumstances. Now, my solution is to bring all this garbage too Christ in my prayer time and each time I find the strength to turn and face the situation.

I know we come at this from very different places and I certainly am not here to preach. I just felt that such an honest post deserved an honest response, not just blank space.

Thanks for offering your readers a chance to share the burden, even in such a small way as reading your work.

Lots of love.

[Liza]

I know exactly what you mean. There is never enough time, money, sleep, patience, good health, etc. Never. It sucks and then it sucks some more, and then it sucks even more and you maybe get perversely cheerful at that point, because you've hit rock bottom so hey, everything's gonna improve from here. And then it doesn't, and people still want their dinner and help doing things a child their age SHOULD be able to do, and you maybe lose it and yell at them or maybe you don't, and then you help them anyway and either deny them all a bedtime story because it's "too late" (shorthand for "Mommy has to go cry/drink/sleep/write angry letters to schools and health insurance companies/write on her stupid blog") or else feel horribly guilty and read them story after story after story, and sometimes it cheers you up and you feel better for a while and sometimes you just skip that part and go straight to bed so you can get up and do it again. I know exactly what you mean, and I wish I'd made more friends in grad school instead of scuttling out of class the minute it was over to go to work or give birth or something. I had a "moment" last night, one of those rare little bits where you forget that it doesn't help a daggone thing to kick and scream and curse at another human being (it wasn't a child, at least), and I know exactly what you mean about the time/resource jealousy, too. I'm sorry you're in the same boat, but I take great consolation in being in such good company :-)

[Friend2]

I am just glad you, well, made it through.

You won't get an apology. What you should do is raise some hell.

Not much I can say here. This one's honest.

m

[Kari]

This one cut straight to the bone, TM.

Your situation is really screwed up. But I'm so glad you wrote about it. I'm really proud and amazed by you, because I know what a great person you are, how strong and resourceful and capable.