The Guilty Ones

By: Annika Harley

The mothers have been saying things behind my back again. I heard it from a nanny at the playground, that they say things like Homewrecker and Slut in the same breath that they croon over their little ones dangling from the monkey bars. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. It’s on days like this that I cross my arms and keep my gaze on my own children on the swings, listening to them shouting higher higher higher. In my mind’s eye, I see them crumpled on the mulch, a pile of themselves. But no, they keep swinging, a pendulum in the park, and I can hear the clock ticking because my time is running out. 

I’m not the first mother to think these things, I know this to be true. There used to be a woman in a house up in the hills, I think she had two children of her own and took on two more when she remarried. So many sticky little mouths to feed, so many grabbing hands, I can’t imagine. Yet, no one felt bad for her, no pity, no sympathy. 

Her shoulders were stooped under the weight of the other mother’s words. It’s what you signed up for, isn’t it? When you decided to get married? Precious, aren’t they? Day in and day out, the children became unrecognizable. Just a buzzing mass of want want want. The mother started to wonder, is there more to this? More to life than to provide? Sacrifice, more like it. How many more play dates? How many more parent-teacher meetings? How many little hands pulling at her hair, my clothes, clawing for more, more, more. Late spring was blooming and her head must have been bursting when she finally did it. Floor polish in the little one’s cereal one morning. Or was it drain cleaner? What a way to go, I don’t know how she choked it down herself. Sometimes, I wonder if it was the floor polish that killed her, or if it was the guilt.

I see myself in her. Not the end of her story, but the beginning. It was a pulsing, an aching, a scream, and then I was stuck. Handed a baby in a bassinet and wheeled out the front door. Good luck, they said. What a joy it is to be a mother. But I have felt no joy in this arrangement. I give myself to them, they have the world wrapped up in a neat little package. When is it my turn? All I know is that I wouldn’t do it the same as she did. If I had the chance now, I think I could follow through. And I wouldn’t let the shame finish me off.