"Ready?" her mom said, more brightly than usual.
"Sure," Nat said, yawning. Getting up for school really sucked, she decided.
They got in the car, and she threw her backpack in the back seat. She fiddled with the radio a little, before turning it off and deciding it really was too early for music anyway. The drive was boring- she'd taken the same one every day in fifth grade, sixth grade, and now it was two months into seventh. As bored as she was, though, she didn't miss her mom driving right past the school.
"Mom!" Nat said, sitting up straight. "You just missed the turn!"
"Relax, Nat. You're not going to school today."
"Mom- you can't just do that! I have a book report to present today!" She did! She'd read Gone with the Wind, and had this fabulous book report planned out. She had easily read the most difficult book of anyone in her class, and she had been looking forward to her teacher's reaction for weeks now.
"You can present it tomorrow," her mom said. "I'm sure you're teacher will be fine with that."
Natalie just sulked. "So what are we doing, anyhow?"
"I was thinking we could go out to lunch."
"Mom," Natalie said in a low, monotonous voice that she hoped to project all the angst of a teenager into, even though she was still just twelve, "It's eight o'clock in the morning. No place will be open to serve lunch! Jeez."
"I'm sure we can find somewhere."
After an hour of driving around, it was confirmed that there weren't any places to go eat lunch.
"Well I'm not hungry anyway," Di said.
"Duh. We just ate breakfast."
"Why don't we go to the mall?"
"And do what?" Nat snapped.
"Shopped! What's so wrong about playing hooky one day and taking my daughter out shopping?"
Natalie said nothing. Fine, she thought.
The day actually began to look up from there. She and her mom actually had a real conversation as they picked through the racks of jeans.
"So I think I might really want to do this piano thing forever," Nat said as she pulled yet another shirt over her head in the dressing room.
"You don't have to decide now, honey. You're only twelve-"
"But mo-om, I need a head start! There's a million other white girls like me from an upper class suburban neighborhood who also played piano-"
"You sound like a statistic book. Now come out and show me."
Natalie emerged from the dressing room, and shrugged.
"Oh, that's so cute on you!" Di exclaimed. "Turn around for me."
Natalie did, secretly happy with all this attention.
"We definitely have to get that."
A few hours later, they walked to the food court in the mall. Nat had her bags in her hands- a new pair of converse, jeans, and two new tops. She'd stopped asking her mom if all this was ok after the sixteenth time.
"I'm your parent, Natalie. I can take you wherever I want. This is perfectly allowed. Now, what do you want for lunch?" Di asked. "I'm thinking... chocolate. Let's get ice cream!"
And again, Nat just went along with it. They ordered large chocolate sundaes with hot fudge on top and chocolate sprinkles, declaring it Chocolate Wednesday. Nat giggled when the man behind the counter handed her the sundae- it was so ridiculous!
After they ate, they continued shopping for another hour or so, until school would nearly be out. Diana checked her watch, and put a hand to her hair.
"Wow! Time flies. C'mon honey, we have to go home now."
"K," Nat said, throwing away the soda she was carrying. When she turned her back, she heard her mom's voice again.
"You've got football practice in half an hour, and you're going to be late."
Natalie froze, and she got that familiar frozen feeling inside of her, when she knew something was wrong and there was nothing she could do.
"I know how hard you've worked, and if you miss practice today the coach won't let you play in the game! And I've been meaning to ask you about your math grade- do you really think your father and I didn't notice that it slipped down to a C?"
Natalie shifted her weight from foot to foot, totally unsure of what to do. She felt like she was intruding on something private, even though it was her own mother. She'd seen this many times before, but her father had always been there. He always knew what to do in these situations, and he had always been the one to put it right.
"Mom," Nat said softly. "We have to go home now."
Her mom didn't even look at her. She was intently focused on something invisible to her left.
"No, I promise I'll talk to him first and he won't be mad at you. Of course he loves you- he's just got a funny way of showing it. But don't think that doesn't mean I'm not upset with you- you have to finish off eighth grade strong, and enter high school like the achiever I know you are. Don't you want to graduate cum laude? I know you can, honey, you're such a smart boy-"
"Mom!" Natalie cried, reaching for her mom's arm. Diana looked at her distintly, then plastered on a warm but stranger's smile on her face.
"Do you need something, little girl?" her mom asked, looking concerned. "Did you lose your mom?"
Natalie froze- Yes, I did, she felt like screaming. She's completely lost in her own mind and I have no idea what to do!
"No, mom- mom it's me!" Nat cried.
"Honey, I'm sorry, but I'm not your mother. I can go ask security to call your mom up, though. Gabe- Gabriel," Diana said turning to the invisible boy on her left, "Can you go run to that customer service desk over there and ask for some help?"
"No- stop it!" Natalie said, tears coming from her eyes again and the volume of her voice rising. A few people had stopped around them and started to stare. "Mom- it's Natalie, it's me, it's Natalie!" she screamed. She put her hands on her mother's arms and shook wildly. She was no longer scared, she was also angry. "He's dead mom, Gabe's not here! He died years ago!"
"Stop it!" Diana screamed. "Stop!" she pushed Natalie away and wrapped her arms around herself, shaking horribly. "You don't know what you're saying- he's, he's right there getting help," she said, pointing to the customer service desk.
"No, he's not," Natalie said, matter-of-factly and coldly. "He's nowhere. He's dead and I'm here and you can't see that!"
"Shut up!" Diana screamed. "I don't know who you are, you horrible child, but I'm not going to listen to your cruel words!"
Natalie took a step back, sobbing. She turned to run away, and a kind looking woman stopped her.
"Honey, do you need some help?" she asked, in the exact same tone that her mother had just used.
"No- no I'm fine."
"Is that your mother?" the woman asked, looking wary.
Natalie nodded sadly, embarrassed. She could feel the woman judging her mother, and even though she hated her, even though she wished that this woman, who looked perfectly, wonderfully normal was her actual mother, Natalie still felt the urge to protect Diana.
"She's sick- she's not dangerous or anything. But she's sick and I need to fix it! I need to get her home, to my dad- my dad. He'll know what to do! But, oh wait-" Natalie remembered something. "He's in the city all day, I don't know what to do, I just don't know what to do," she said, losing control and on the verge of hysteria.
The woman looked overwhelmed, but nonetheless put a hand on Natalie's shoulder. "Honey, don't worry. Now let's try to get you and your mom some help, ok?"
Natalie nodded, trying to regain control of herself. The woman went to the customer service desk, and then two security men were escourting Nat and her mom into a little room on the other side of the mall. Her mother had stopped screaming now, and was dreadfully quiet. Her eyes were darting and she was still shaking profusely, looking terrified.
"What's your dad's phone number, honey?" a large woman asked Natalie.
She gave it, but told them, "I don't know if he'll be home."
Twenty minutes later they were still waiting when Dan rushed into the little room.
"Diana, Diana," he said, getting down on his knees in front of her and taking her face in his hands so her eyes met his. "Love it's me. It's Dan. It's going to be ok. It's going to be ok."
Diana closed her eyes, and silently cried, resting her head on Dan's shoulder.
"The girl said he was dead. Said my baby was dead! She's wrong, isn't she Dan? He's right here!"
Dan glanced at Natalie, his eyes wide with fear. "It's time to go home now, Di. C'mon, Natalie."
Once they reached home, Diana had regained her bearings and her grip on reality.
"I don't know what you were thinking," Dan said to Diana, livid. The three of them were sitting in the living room. "I'm at a meeting with a client in the city today when the school calls wondering where Natalie is. I say, 'she should be at school, her mother took her in this morning.' But Natalie wasn't there. I was worried, I thought something happened- but when I called the house, you were gone, too! I left work and was calling and driving all over hell looking for the two of you. Do you know how scared I was? How could you be so irresponsible?"
"I just wanted to have a nice day with my daughter, Dan. Stop acting like my father," Diana said.
"That's what Saturdays are for, Di, and I'm not acting like your father- I'm acting like Natalie's father who was terrified about where she was all day. She needs to be in school. And what would have happened had I not gotten the call from the mall? You're just lucky you weren't arrested. Do you know what could have happened? If you'd done something worse, they could have taken Nat away from you, we'd have been investigated for our parenting abilities-"
"Dan, you're exaggerating."
"No, I'm not- she could be put into foster care-"
"Maybe that's what I want!" Nat cried, standing up and clenching her fists. "Maybe I don't want to live with you two. It's always about her," she spat, pointing at her mother, who flinched. "I think I'd be happier somewhere else." Then she ran into her room.
Di and Dan stood there in silence, staring after her. Then, Di sighed.
"She has every right to think that. I would hate having me for a mom, too."
"Don't say that, Di. I'm sure she loves you. You're just not like all the other mothers-"
"No, Dan. Just stop. Don't make excuses for me anymore. I'm not healthy, and I'm not attentive to her, and I can even forget she exists. What kind of mother forgets that her own daughter exists? I don't want you trying to fix everything anymore and cover it up with lies, pretending everything's ok. Because I'm not ok."
Dan had nothing to say. He just nodded, and then went to talk to Natalie.
Diana sat alone on the couch for a few minutes, staring at her hands and hating herself.
"The worst part of it all is," she began, speaking so quietly to herself. "I know how wrong it is. I know I've snapped. I can feel the shame and I know I'm not acting normally. I think of what I should do, and then I do something else. There's this demon that's controlling my every move, and turning me from a sane woman to a woman who forgets her daughter. And when I wake up, I feel all the pain it leaves behind..."
She sobbed into her hands, and felt a hand on her back. She looked up, and smiled. He was giving his usual half-smile in his comforting way, his blue eyes sad.
"It's ok, mom. You're not as bad as everyone says. You're really not. You're too hard on yourself sometimes."
"You're a sweet kid, you know that?" Di said. Maybe everything wasn't so bad- after all, there were no repercussions from the day. No legal matters to take care of, no injuries.
"Exactly, mom. That's what you've got to think about. Everyone's ok, and Natalie will be better soon. She dramatizes sometimes. And dad likes to make mountains outta molehills- seriously, it wasn't that bad. I was there, remember? I saw the whole thing. Nat'll get over it. She's probably just jealous that I came along on her shopping trip."
Di smiled. "You're right. She'll be ok. We'll all be ok."
Sometimes he knew just the right thing to say to put her back on track again.
"How'd I ever end up with a son like you?" she asked in wonderment. Whenever she felt like she was losing it, he'd remind her that she was perfectly normal.
"Just lucky, I guess," he said, smiling.