Saturday.
Sunday.
Two promises.
For once, I intended to find out whether both would be kept.
Peter came into the kitchen carrying the newspaper.
“Was that Joel?”
I nodded.
“You’re babysitting again?”
“Yes.”
He looked disappointed.
We had spent most of our marriage arranging our lives around my son’s needs.
But this Saturday was different.
I wasn’t going there to punish Joel.
I wanted him to understand something I’d spent 38 years failing to teach him.
That I was a person.
Not simply his mother.
And people needed looking after too.
Peter pulled out a chair.
“Are you going to tell him what happened?”
“Eventually.”
“Why not now?”
I thought about that bus stop.
Nineteen minutes in the cold.
Nobody had offered me dinner.
Nobody had offered me a lift.
My son hadn’t even walked me to the door.
“Because,” I said, “I want to see what happens when I need something.”
