Fireworks

Last night Ruthanne and I take our kids to see the fireworks. We are two tired mothers and our 3 kids. We set up chairs close to the Hudson, among a small crowd because it looks like it will rain. Night is coming on with a steady hand. The sky is the color of mud, and boats list on the temperamental water. In the distance, a black cloud advances, lightening licking at it now and again. I hope our boys will not notice the cloud because they are fearful little boys. Just like we are fearful women—who are also very brave.

The kids play. On our feet, at our shoulders, on our laps, between our legs, behind us, in front of us, and right at our sides. They want icecreamcandyglowsticksflagspopcornpeanutsgum. Their eyes seek out the next thing even as we hand them the first. We are up out of our chairs before we’ve finished sitting down. Hehitmenoyouhitmethatsmineknockitoff. And ihavetogotothebathroom. Andimthirstyimhungryimtiredimbored. A cacophony that drowns out the slapped-together band behind us that never bothered to learn all the lyrics.

Give us some space, we tell the kids. But they do not listen. Do not hear us. We are here only to give them what they want, what they need. I dab at the orange stain of Capri Sun on my jacket, feel the chicken nuggets under my fingernails; the belly that once carried my boy to life, folds heavily over the top of my jeans. I look at Ruthanne, and she cocks one cobalt blue eye—the same eye that captivates men at the bar—and I know what she means in this one little gesture. Women lie to each other about so many things—and especially this.

Beside us an older couple sits. They are quiet, watching the water. They sip red wine in clear plastic cups. I envy them their quiet, even as I know they are waiting for grown children to call, to come by—and who probably won’t.

We don’t know yet that the night will end with a woman slumped against a crumbling cement wall, wheezing for breath in the rain. That Ruthanne will put down her chairs and her purse and the jackets and the toys and the snacks to help this woman. I take the two youngest kids away where they cannot see—my son coming into my bed each night with his nightmares—but Ruthanne’s son will not be distracted. He worries about his mother, about the woman on the rough, gravel strewn sidewalk, leaning against the wall.

Go find a police officer, she tells her son. Calmly, matter of factly. And he judges the distance from where his mother stands to where the police car is parked. He does not want to leave her. But finally decides to go.

The police come and it is all flashing lights and the screech of sirens. We collect our things and our children and walk. The rain comes down, ruining hair and make-up, sending wet dirt between the toes in my flip flops.

I need to get more comfortable with being lonely, Ruthanne says, as her daughter whines for the bathroom, and the two boys fight. I think about lonely as we make our way up the hill. L-o-n-e-l-y. And tonight it seems like nothing I can understand.

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