Mommy

David was my only child. We lived together in a house outside of town. At this point in our lives, he was growing up no doubt. All you had to do was buy shoes for him to know it definitely. He was rambunctious as all kids are, maybe a little too competitive and rebellious, but I had grown up that way too, and it had gotten me an academic scholarship, awards and respect in my profession, mathematics. I had David when I was young. I’d like to say he was a ‘love child’, but he was more of a ‘one-night-stand child’. I was wild in my college years from time to time. It was a way to relieve the mind numbing pressure of my classes, especially after I got into graduate school.

Marrying his father was out of the question. He was slow-witted and spoiled, the typical rich kid who was the fifth generation at the university. He looked a lot more appealing when I was drunk. I still don’t regret not marrying him, even though he was rich as Croesus, especially after his father offered to pay for an abortion. The asshole was just trying to get his asshole son off the hook for child support. Now I don’t think the government has any business in it, but abortions are, in my mind, murder. Chacun à son goût. I didn’t take a dime from the jerk. Anyway, I also wouldn’t even list him on David’s birth certificate. “Unknown” is an interesting entry for a parent.

It wasn’t particularly easy, but then, as Dad always says, life isn’t easy when you make bad decisions. I struggled to get us a place to live, and I struggled to get the resources to raise David properly. Mom and Dad helped, a lot, and David and I owe a lot to them, but it was my responsibility, they were not the ones who got drunk and gave in to a sexual frenzy with a trogolyte. Sigh.

Through all this, miraculously, my academics didn’t suffer. I’ve always had a knack for mathematics and it seemed like everyone was always trying to keep up with me. I guess I owe that to Mom and Dad, too. The lab, whic did work for NASA, hired me as soon as I finished my post-graduate work about the same time David started school. Thank God I hadn’t been born a quarter of a century before, even. As it was, I was on my way.

Things sailed along with the normal family complications, child care was always a problem, but I coped. Things got more serious one day when the school called me and asked me to come in, David had been caught fighting with another boy. I wasn’t particularly busy right at that time at work, but I was pretty upset that David was intruding on my neat schedule. I arrived at the school to find David, some other boy named Henry, I did not know, and Henry’s mother, Cindy, sitting in the office. I grimaced to myself a little when I realized they were probably all waiting on me. I talked to Cindy a bit before we went into the principal’s office. She was nice. A competent type, the type person who could get anything done, and done well. I liked her.

I was stunned when the principal told me David was an ongoing problem. My first reaction was why didn’t anyone tell me? But I took a deep breath, sat a minute and thought. David and this Henry were a problem, this petty, officious bureaucrat was trying to assure they didn’t become a bigger one and upset his world further. I thought he took the easy way out suspending them, but I didn’t say anything, I listened. The ten-day suspension would intrude on my professional life, but not decisively. I was mainly concerned with launch problems and the next launch was months away. David didn’t know this when he was acting up, though, so I made a big deal of how his actions were impacting our living. Watching him, I realized I did that for nothing. He no more understood ‘making a living’ than he understood Russian literature or Quantum mechanics. So much for rational parenting.

That little fact, in the back of my mind, didn’t stop me from giving full vent to my emotions. David had to understand that his behavior was not good.

I invited Cindy over to think about the situation and pool our resources and David and I headed home. I sent David to his room without his phone, which made no impression whatever, since he played on his computer the whole time.

Cindy and Henry got there and we sat the boys in the living room while we talked in the kitchen. We were both pretty much blindsided by this incident and were still struggling for a solution. The boys started raising a ruckus and we caught them sparring again.