Contrails

I was the worst mother in the world.

Driving to work, fighting to hold back tears on a sunny and beautiful September morning, I couldn't help thinking that the bright blue sky and cheerful sunshine were the perfect contrast to my mood.

Earlier that morning, just as on every other weekday for the previous five months, I had been nursing my son before I had to take him to day care and head off to work. He was seven months old, our only child, and he was the most precious gift I had ever been blessed to receive. He was perfect, of course, and I could prattle on for hours about so many firsts: the first moment I held him in my arms, my first glimpse of eyes the color of a bold summer sky, the first time he smiled at me, and his most recent first – two perfect white incisors peeking out from his upper gums.

My husband had gone to work and I was enjoying some quiet mommy-son time, watching him suckle and thinking about the day ahead, when it happened. He decided to test out those new teeth, and he bit me. Hard. I pulled him off me and yelled. Loud. My son jumped in my arms and looked up at me with a combination of shock and fear that I would never have dreamed you could see in the eyes of an infant. His eyes widened, his mouth opened and I felt time stand still as he took a deep breath and then let loose a cry I’d never heard from him before – a frightened wail that shattered my heart like nothing ever had before. I had scared my baby; I had been the cause of the fear whose alarm now rang in my ears. I couldn't stop the flow of my own tears as I soothed him, as I stilled the tiny hand that was pounding against my breast. Gradually he calmed down and returned to nursing, though I could swear he kept one wary eye on me for the rest of the morning.

Forty-five minutes later I had dropped him at daycare and was almost to the office, driving on autopilot, my stomach a tumbling boulder of guilt. Desperately trying to stifle tears of shame and self-pity, I convinced myself that I was as low as anyone could get - that nobody on earth could possibly be feeling worse than I was at that moment. Then the DJ on my favorite rock station delivered some strange news: "Okay, we're getting word here that maybe someone flew a small plane into the World Trade Center. Not a lot coming in now, but we'll let you know if we hear anything more. Anyway, here's some Led Zeppelin." Stupid people, I thought, probably some idiot trying for a spectacular suicide. Selfish bastard. As Black Dog faded into Californication my thoughts returned to my son’s frightened eyes and I stopped thinking about that pilot, that selfish suicidal bastard and his puddle-jumper of my imagination. By the time my office building was in sight my thoughts once again revolved solely around the ache in my gut and the self-pity in which I luxuriated. But as I turned into the parking lot, the DJ broke into the music: "It sounds like this is more than just a small plane, folks. We don't have a lot to go on right now, but it's sounding a lot more serious." I pulled into my usual parking spot and shut off the engine, wondering just what that meant.

When I walked into the building, I went straight into the cafeteria to see if the local news had any updates on the strange story. Of course it was more than a small plane, and more than just a local news story. My imagined single-propeller private plane was banished by the horrible reality on the television screen in front of me. The self-pity that had consumed me just minutes before evaporated like summer showers on noonday pavement.

I looked away from the screen for a moment, taking in the room around me. I was not alone, I realized. It looked like half the building was in there, watching in shock as the replays showed first one airliner, then another, disappear into the towers. We watched the black smoke obliterate the azure sky; saw the first responder vehicles racing toward the scene. I looked back and that’s when I saw that wide shot, the one of the smoke pouring out of both towers – then I saw something shift inside the smoke and muttered to myself, "Oh my God, that building just collapsed." A few seconds later the broadcasters voiced almost the exact same words. None of us could fully process what had just happened.

Something shifted for me in that moment. It was more than just a radical reminder of the old adage “No matter how bad things are for you, they are worse for someone else.” That awful September morning made me look at parenthood through a wide lens for the first time. Until then I had only bothered to see my son in the microcosm of our family – as one of three. From that day forward I would remember that his place in world is as important as his place in our home. I swore that morning to raise him to know the values of respect, tolerance and love – and to never succumb to fear and hatred of those different from him.

I don't remember much of the rest of the work day. I worked in a call center, but that day the phones barely rang. We did what we could for our employees, especially those with family in lower Manhattan and the couple who had connections to people in the airplanes that had consumed the towers in terrorist infernos. Somehow we made it through and once I left it was all I could do to drive home at something resembling a normal, non-racecar, speed.

I parked in our driveway, next to the little house by the reservoir where we were starting our family. I climbed out of my car and looked up to see my husband coming down the front steps, our baby held tight in his arms. We came together on the sidewalk, hugging each other and crying in silence. After the morning I’d had, followed by the fear and shock and other horrible emotions of the day, there were no words to express the unadulterated joy and overwhelming gratitude I felt for being able to stand there with my husband and son in my arms.

I was the luckiest mother in the world.


A/N: Parenting Short Story Contest, Word Count 1110