Eating Crow

I was making lunch for the two little ones while talking to Martin about the short story I've been working on, "Empress Chicken," when another call came in.

"Hello," chirped a cheery voice on the other line. "It's S--."

"Oh, hello, S--," I said, wedging the phone under one ear and slicing apples. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine," she said.

It struck me that S-- was Elspeth's preschool teacher, and I wondered suddenly if Elspeth were sick. Instead S-- continued, "I just wanted to let you know that no one picked up Elspeth today."

Until that second, I had been feeling blithely in control of life--I'd taken the two little ones to the grocery store and the park, the day before I'd finished my column for the week and another draft of the chicken story. The column turned out well and though the chicken short story was borderline garbage, maybe I'd be able to salvage it. I'd finally tackled the piles of laundry that were threatening to burst the walls of our bathroom, and I had a stack of peanut butter sandwiches ready for lunch.

"Elspeth! I forgot Elspeth!" I was more than fifteen minutes late. I've always consoled myself that though I forget everything else, I never forget the children. I can't say that anymore.

"Come on, you two!" I shouted, tearing around the house to grab my keys. Though it was forty degrees outside, I grabbed little E in his sock feet and threw open the door. Beatrix skittered down the sidewalk, barefoot and coatless.

The teachers at the preschool came to the door with big grins on their faces. The oldest said, "Don't worry, honey, it happens to all of us." I did not ask how many of them have ever forgotten their children.

My week so far is indication that maybe I have too much going on. Last night, as I drove home from a friend's house on a road I've driven countless times, I thought abruptly, "I'm going the wrong way!" So I drove for a while down the dusky, twisty road, turned around and started back the other way. Not long after that, the girls said, "We don't recognize any of this, Mommy." I had to admit they were right, so i I pulled off the road, turned around again, and drove back to the place where my mind had gone south. "Have you always turned at the old one room schoolhouse?" I asked myself again, gazing up the darkening road. I pulled the car up the hill and sure enough, I HAVE always turned that way. The girls chorused triumphantly: Told you so! and I fired back, "And THAT'S why you must always put on your shoes and socks when Mommy says. Because Mommy can't drive very well in the dark, see?"

This is not the first time such a familiar road has suddenly become strange to me. This is just the (let's see) eight thousandth time.

Today as I steered the car toward home, I muttered, "I'm becoming my mother." My mother has forgotten me numerous times on street corners and, most notoriously, when I was three months old, at a party. She and my dad went home, undressed, and put my sister to bed. They showed up later at the party in their pyjamas and asked for me, who had fallen asleep on the hostess' floor. My mother and now I celebrate a long tradition of forgetfulness. My greatgrandpa showed up a day late for his passage on the Titanic. This is not a joke. Most of us who suffer from chronic absentmindism do not get such a good story and a second chance at life. Instead, we wonder, as my mother often did and I did today, if we are slipping into early onset dementia. We vow to write everything down so we don't forget it. We consider leaving notes for ourselves with obvious messages like "Don't forget your five-year old at school." And we eat crow as a regular part of our diet.