A Broken Promise

    It was a beautiful summer day, and Mrs. Cole was standing at the sink in her kitchen, chopping onions and looking out of the window over the sink. In the faint reflection of the window, Mrs. Cole could see her plate displaying Jesus Christ hanging on her wall. This particular plate was something of a comfort, or a luxury on which Mrs. Cole depended. Being a mother and a housewife, she spent at least 7 hours a day in her sparkling kitchen. Whether she was cleaning, cooking, or talking to her friend on the phone, whenever she felt alone, or upset, she would look up at Jesus and feel like she was safe.
    Despite the beautiful weather, Mrs. Cole was not entirely happy. Even as she looked at her Christ plate, she couldn’t find anything to pacify her furious breathing. She shook her long blonde hair that so many women envied out of her face and returned to chopping onions.
    Her seven year old daughter, Melanie, had broken an expensive crystal figure of a ballerina in the family room that very morning. That crystal ballerina had been left to Mrs. Cole by her grandmother.
    In her head, Mrs. Cole had been practicing what she would say to her daughter when she came home from her friends’ house, and she soon had to conclude that she would just have to settle with saying whatever was on her tongue when she saw her daughter.
    When Melanie walked through the door she was wearing a blue dress and some white sneakers. Her brown hair had some frizzy stray hairs sticking out of her bun, temporary scars of playing and running around with her friends. As Melanie looked up and saw her mother, her eyes filled with guilt. She knew that her mother had seen the ballerina.
    “What did you do this morning?” Mrs. Cole asked her daughter stiffly, not looking up from her onions.
    “I don’t know,” said Melanie in a falsely innocent voice. “I guess I just got up”
    “Have you been in the family room recently, Melanie?” Mrs. Cole asked, suddenly looking down at her daughter.
    “No ma’am.”
    “So you have no idea that the crystal ballerina my grandmother left to me has been shattered?”
    Melanie said nothing, but simply averted her mother’s eyes and looked at her feet.
    Just the thought that her daughter was not going to apologize, or at least confess to breaking the ballerina, made Mrs. Cole angrier.
    “So then who broke it? I’m the only one who’s been in this house all day, and I most certainly didn’t break it.”
    “I didn’t break it,” Melanie said suddenly, in a voice with no trace of emotion.
    “Excuse me?” Mrs. Cole said in a dangerous voice. “Well could you please tell me who did break it? Or do you think I would have blamed you if I had broken it?”
    “I promise I didn’t break it,” Melanie pleaded, her eyes now swimming with tears. She turned on her heal and attempted to run to her room, but Mrs. Cole grabbed her by the collar of her dress. Dragging her back into the kitchen, Mrs. Cole attempted to force her into a chair. Still Melanie fought her mother. Mrs. Cole’s anger mounted, and she gave her daughter a small slap on the cheek. Mrs. Cole gasped, surprised by her own action.
    Melanie gaped at her mother, all of the emotion in her eyes suggesting she had just been badly hurt. She then ran off sobbing, and Mrs. Cole did not fight her this time. She collapsed into the chair and buried her face in her hands. She felt ashamed.
    After five minutes or so, she finally gathered herself. She was afraid some of the neighbors had seen how she had handled her daughter. She looked out of the window, but the only eyes that looked back at her were those of the reflection of the Jesus Christ plate. She turned around to look at it in an attempt to find some comfort in those glossy eyes, but even as she looked at it, Christ’s kind expression that had so often offered her comfort, turned into an accusing stare.
Looking at the Christ plate, Mrs. Cole suddenly felt her shame grow. It was almost as if this was His goal: To make her feel ashamed. To force her to remember the promise she had made herself seven years ago…

    A 25 year old Mrs. Cole sat up on pillows in a hospital bed. She was completely exhausted. She had just pushed out of her body a healthy seven-point-three ounce baby girl, and was covered in sweat.
She looked up, panting, and saw the midwife cleaning off a new-born infant. For the first time, she gazed into the face of her daughter.
The midwife smiled and brought her the little baby. As Mrs. Cole looked into her daughter’s eyes, she realized that she would never see anything more wonderful in her life.
    “You said you wanted to name her Melanie, Mrs. Cole?”
    “Yes,” said Mrs. Cole, momentarily distracted. “I’d like her to be named Melanie Marciel Cole, after her great-grandmother.”
    The mid-wife smiled, and handed Melanie into her mother’s arms. Mrs. Cole gazed, bemusedly, at her new daughter. She didn’t think she had ever been so happy. It showed her just how beautiful the miracle of life could be, and now she had been able to create a miracle. And, looking at this miracle, she knew that she must give Melanie a life full of gentleness and happiness. She knew that she had to promise to herself and her daughter that no matter what happened, no matter how angry at her daughter she was, she must always treat her as delicately as she would treat a crystal ballerina that had been given to her by the very woman her daughter had been named after.

    Mrs. Cole marched up to her daughter’s room with a plate of goldfish in her hands. Though it was her daughter’s favorite snack, Mrs. Cole rarely let her daughter eat goldfish: She knew that there was always the possibility that they would end up shoved into the carpet instead of in her daughter’s mouth.
    Mrs. Cole knocked gently three times on her daughter’s bedroom door, and when there was no answer, she called in a soft voice “Melanie? Melanie may I come in?”
    There was still no answer.
    “Melanie, please,” said Mrs. Cole as gently as ever, though her voice was now shaking with the strain of fighting tears. “Just let me come in. I just want to talk. I’ve brought you some goldfish.”
    Mrs. Cole could have easily just strolled right into her daughter’s room, but she needed to let Melanie know that this time, she was in charge of what her mother did. She didn’t want to make Melanie feel like she didn’t have a choice but to talk to her mother.
    Mrs. Cole was on the verge of turning and leaving when Melanie spoke.
    “You can come in, mom.”
    Mrs. Cole smiled to herself and pushed open the door. Melanie was sitting on her bed, staring at the ground. Her face was red and puffy; she had obviously been crying.
    Mrs. Cole slowly walked to her daughter’s bed, sat down, and put the plate of goldfish onto her lap. As Mrs. Cole bent to kiss her cheek, Melanie flinched, as if her mother was going to hit her again. Mrs. Cole couldn’t have done any permanent damage to their relationship, could she?
    “I want you to know how sorry I am,” Mrs. Cole said. “I shouldn’t have gotten so angry.  It was just a piece of glass.”
    “I’m sorry too, Mom,” Melanie said, and when Mrs. Cole looked at her questioningly, she continued “For lying about breaking the ballerina. I know I should have told you the truth.”
Mrs. Cole stroked her daughter’s hair absentmindedly. She knew this could never happen again.
    Her daughter was so young, and deserved being treated like a real person, with feelings. She was not supposed to be treated like a pet. She was not meant to grow up, having adults shaking their fingers at her, saying “NO!” whenever she stepped out of line.
    Mrs. Cole knew first hand what it was like to be forced to live a life with a mother who’s too harsh: She knew because she had lived like that as a child. But fortunately for her, she had her grandmother to look up to. She was devastated when her grandmother died. It had been more or less equal to losing a parent. Her mother wasn’t very much of a parent to her, and her father was always away. Mrs. Cole’s grandmother was the closest thing to a parent she’d ever had
    Melanie, however, was not as lucky as her mother. She was already afraid of her grandmother as it was; she was strict, stubborn, and cold.
    Mrs. Cole was terrified that she had ruined her relationship with Melanie. Sure, many parents would have disregarded Mrs. Cole’s brief loss of temper: So many parents believed that kids all deserved a good pop on the mouth every now and then. But Mrs. Cole didn’t believe this was ok. She knew what it was like to have parents who treated their children like a dog.
    Mrs. Cole wanted to tell Melanie how much she regretted hitting her. She wanted to tell her the exact reason she was so upset, but she simply could not find the words to do it. How could she tell her seven year old daughter something so complicated, something that was so real in the world.
Just as she was about to attempt to tell her daughter what was on her mind, Melanie saved her.
    “It’s ok, Mom. I understand. I shouldn’t have broken the ballerina. I’m sorry.”
Although she wanted to think so, Mrs. Cole knew that Melanie couldn’t possibly understand, despite the fact that she was so sure she did.
    Mrs. Cole smiled down at her daughter, kissed her on the cheek, and left the room. Walking down the steps, Mrs. Cole realized that she had to re-make her promise, but this time, she had to keep it. She had to have someone, or something, give her the strength to keep her temper, and to always treat her daughter as delicately as possible.
    When she reached the kitchen, she walked right over the plate displaying Christ. Without taking her eyes off his face, she knelt on the kitchen floor and prayed.