A Mother's Wish
The milky whiteness had covered her vision. Seconds ago she had been holding a spatula with this morning's breakfast on it. Now she was spreading her hands out into the air like a light tower searching for the shore. She had been stricken without sight in the middle of her morning routine.
The children could be heard coming in from the laundry room that was next to the kitchen. She could smell the fresh detergent that adorned their scarves and jackets. She heard her son Ishmael shake his head and body like a dog beating off the bathwater from a tin tub. She felt her 6-year-old daughter Isabelle, who she could only imagine was bundled like a Nanook child sledding, grab her hand and whisper "Mommy". Her husband had left 30 minutes ago and she had no intention of frightening the children with her sudden affliction. She was alone to sort out bags, zipper, shoestrings, and wet noses.
She could almost feel the cocked head of her 9-year-old son as she dropped the egg sandwich that had been on the spatula. The boy nudged Isabelle and made off in a dead run to the other room for no reason other than that he was 9.
The cause of the white darkness was unknown to the mother. She had no recollection of diseased encounters with anyone and she had no reason to believe that an epidemic had broken out that would affect her but not the rest of the household. She merely attempted to sort the children out before they began questioning, worrying, and then crying.
Isabelle picked up the dropped egg sandwich and put it in the sink. The mother asked her to grab her pocket book from the next room.
"Now, who is my big girl?" She said wiping her brow from nervousness and perspiration.
"I am Mommy." Squeaked the little girl.
"Go into the other room and grab Mommy's pocket book and be careful to avoid your brother."
"Yes Mommy."
She scurried in and out with the wobbling motion a child often makes when running full speed with too many clothes. She fell to her knees on the way back, but as a rubber ball keeps bouncing after being run over by a car, the child kept running to her mother with the pocket book that was bigger than her own torso.
"Ok baby. Take out Mommy's wallet and see if you can find a 5 dollar bill."
"Yes Mommy.... Mommy? What's wrong?"
"Nothing baby. Mommy is just a little tired that's all. Did you find a 5?"
"No there are only 3 20 dollar bills." The mother smiled at the proper way her daughter had relayed the number and unit of the money in her wallet.
"Well take a 20 for you and your brother. Ask the teacher at school if she can help you make change for it."
Just then the boy ran in with his father's umbrella that he was now using as a sword.
"Unhand her!" Screamed the boy from the walkway outside the kitchen. His plastic goulashes were tapping the wooden floors and his face started to sweat from running around in the house with his full winter clothing on.
"I said unhand her or I shall thrash you." Again the mother smiled at the life within the boy. The 9 year old in the boy brought so much light, laughter, and tiring to the house.
"Now your sister has a 20 dollar bill Ish. I want you to split it with her when you get to school and then bring me back my change this afternoon. Ok?"
"I shall mother. I shall valiantly take down any pirate looking to steal me sisters gold. Argggg."
The mother laughed and fell to her knees from exhaustion. The white blindness had not only affected her vision but her stamina and breathing. At the moment she was on all fours grasping for a handle or ledge to pull herself up she heard the horn from the school bus outside.
Ishmael rang out to her, "Mom? Mom, what's wrong?!"
"Oh Ish you know how your Mother sometimes gets those headaches. Well this is a bad one. I'll be all right in a minute or two. Now go - you - don't want to miss your bus. Come give your mother a kiss."
The boy limply meandered over. His face wore the expression of a boy walking to his mother's casket at a funeral parlor. He lunged at her as if instinctively he knew it was more than a head cold. He lunged and hugged his mother. His mother felt the boy's anxiety and responded with a toying joke. She coughed like a coy fake actor at a cocktail party and rolled a little on the floor as he squeezed her neck with his chubby 9-year-old arms.
"Ish, you are too strong for your mother. Such a strong boy" - She coughed pretending to be overwhelmed. Then with every last ounce of energy she could muster, she sprung to her feet, straightened out the curled hair that had fallen in her eyes, and in her white blindness managed to pat the boy on the back side and say, "Now run along before the pirates of the cellar get ye sister's gold."
"Aye! Aye! Mother" And he waddled off to the door clearing a path with his rapier of an umbrella.
Isabelle hugged her mother's leg and darted away screaming, "Wait for me Ish. Wait for me!" The mother, in her final breaths before she died, envisioned that Ishmael held out his hand waiting for his sister and with his other hand on the canvassed sword, blazed a path through the door and out into the world. She waved at the empty house imagining they were in the doorway waving back with smiles bigger than any she had ever seen.
