Perhaps because it had been a long shopping trip to buy school clothes and she should have taken her younger son first, but she hadn’t—she had taken her older son first—, and then, after she had already spent more on new clothes for both of them than she wanted to, then Robert, her youngest, wanted an expensive pair of already-ripped jeans; perhaps because she heard a whine in his voice and he was well old enough to know how to ask politely; perhaps because, when she said no, she saw flecks of golden anger in his hazel eyes; perhaps because her weariness overwhelmed her good sense, as it does everyone’s, she thought, except those mothers on the store banners with their eternal smiles and patience; perhaps simply because it was the honest response building in her when Robert said, Brian gets all the new stuff and all I get is the spoiled stuff; perhaps because it has now all come upon her at once, she turns to him and says, That’s because we love you less, and immediately she sees the harm she has done, sees that somewhere in him he has his confirmation for everything he has secretly suspected and resented, that no matter how much attention she may lavish on him, no matter how many gifts and favorite meals, no matter how many apologies, she will never be forgiven, that she cannot ever fix what she has broken, sees that he will never again relax in her arms and accept what she wants now more than ever to give to him.
Jeff Mock is the author of Ruthless (Three Candles Press, 2010). His poems appear in American Poetry Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, New England Review, The North American Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. He directs the MFA program at Southern Connecticut State University and lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with his wife, Margot Schilpp, and their daughters, Paula and Leah.
