On a recent Saturday morning, I seized the opportunity to spend time with my daughter, Shelby, by tempting her with a trip to Einstein’s for her favorite bagel and schmear. She’s disinclined to want to be seen with me in public, so I was delighted when she accepted. Having once been an adolescent girl easily mortified by her mother, I made a mental note to stay within Shelby’s guidelines of acceptable maternal behavior, the bottom line of which was to not, in any way shape or form, draw attention to myself.
The moment I parked the car, Shelby popped out of it, so I expected her to be long gone by the time I emerged after gathering my things together. When I opened my car door I was surprised to find Shelby standing next to it. I heard angry shouting nearby, but wasn’t particularly concerned. Our neighborhood bagel deli was safe, familiar territory to me, even sort of boringly suburban with its clientele of neck-tied businessmen and stylishly outfitted athletes.
“Don’t stare,” Shelby commanded as we made our way across the parking lot. My eyes were on Shelby’s back as I listened to a man and woman screaming at each other. The sounds were definitely not safe, so despite Shelby’s admonition, I turned to see what was going on. About twenty feet away, standing between two parked cars a large ranting man and a smaller shrieking woman were hitting each other. The woman took two lunging steps away from the man, toward me, and I instinctively called to her, “Do you need some help?”
Wild with emotion, and crying, she told me she needed no help as she lunged past me and out of the parking lot, wailing at the man that she would be telling her brother-in-law all about what he did. The man screamed at her while she disappeared around the corner of a building beside the street. Suddenly I realized the man was yelling at me, calling me obscene names favored by wife-beaters.
Fight or flight adrenaline flooded my body, and I did not move.
“Why’d you ask her if she needed help? You saw her hitting me!” He screamed.
“Cuz you’re bigger than she is!” I shouted at him.
“Why don’t you keep your nose out of my business?” he countered, peppering the line with obscenities.
“Why don’t you control your temper?” I yelled.
Now, I was wild with emotion, too. I didn’t see her go, but I knew that Shelby was not close-by, and I knew she’d be mortified, but I remained, engaged in a shouting frenzy with a raging, foul-mouthed man.
He called me names. I told him to grow up. He tried to scare me. I told him to bring it on. He threatened me and I stepped toward him. “So you’re gonna hit me now?” I baited him like a gradeschooler.
It was then that I knew I had to walk away. Another customer’s presence helped me to disengage. She urged me to write down the guy’s license plate number, which I did with a quivering hand.
Inside Einstein’s, another woman who had seen the whole thing rushed over. She hadn’t come outside, she said, because you never know, these days, whether or not that guy would be carrying a gun.
Throughout all the craziness, my daughter had never completely left my consciousness, but the comment about the gun brought Shelby’s point of view of the scene sharply to my mind. I walked over to where she stood, next in line at the counter.
She glared at me. “That was so stupid,” she said through clenched teeth.
Shaky and lightheaded, I ordered my breakfast and struggled to calm my thundering heart. Fifteen customers were seated where they had likely witnessed the parking lot action. Not one of them looked up to meet my eye. The two women who had spoken to me busied themselves with their breakfasts. I felt awkward and alone as my daughter and I awaited our bagels.
Later in the day, I spoke to Shelby about the parking lot incident. I asked her if she had been afraid for my safety. She didn’t answer my question, but again displayed her disgust.
“We live in a sophisticated community where it’s easy to forget that our society is waist deep in domestic violence,” I told her. “I wanted that woman to feel supported.” And that is the only explanation I felt necessary to offer to my thirteen year old daughter.
I didn’t tell her about the dozen times I fought with my abusive ex-husband in public, how at any moment he would have backed right down had somebody other than me taken him on. I didn’t tell her that men who beat women are cowards.
I wished I had handled the situation in a way that would have made Shelby proud. I thought of how juvenile and ridiculous I must have appeared during the shouting match, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret what I had done. As I struggled to simply feel OK about the whole thing, I remembered something my father used to say. He told me: “It is better to do the right thing poorly, then to do the wrong thing well.”
The Saturday that had begun so strangely ended peacefully. Even if Shelby was not proud of me, I could set the example for my daughter of being proud of myself. |
