The Babysitter

Mona is the first babysitter I can remember. Or did Lisa come before that? I don't remember. Mona was short for Ramona, and I loved her with all the love a four year old can muster. She could do amazing things with a tortilla and a microwave. Her favorite was American cheese with a slice of ham rolled up in a tortilla and microwaved until it was just about plastic. Synthetic meltiness and salt. Need I say more? My favorite was a generous slab of butter, melted and sprinkled with brown sugar. No matter how well Mona rolled up that tortilla, the butter dribbled, hot and sweet down my chin. These were, of course, culinary delights that my mother had never heard of, or had conveniently forgotten, and either way, she never made them.  

When I was ten my parents left us with a young woman from up the street. Kerry was fourteen, plain and awkward, and she didn't know anything about tortillas and the microwave. But I doubt it would have helped her in my eyes if she had. As soon as my parents left, Tiffany - still a baby - started to wail. Instead of offering to help, I took her myself. She quieted almost instantly. I probably cast a disdainful glance over my shoulder at Kerry as I climbed the stairs to my parents bedroom, where outsiders like Kerry were not allowed to go. You see, some people cobble together things to feel guilty for as they grow older. I crammed all - well, most anyway - my bad behavior into the earliest years of my life.

While Kerry tried to herd the other two children unsuccessfully into bed, I rocked Tiffany to sleep. It was already dark outside and the moon cast a blue light on her face. I was certain that I would never forget the way she looked at me before she finally drifted off or the exact curve of her cheek as she lay against my arm. Tiffany's face has inevitably blended into the faces of my own children. And rightly so, for that was the first time it occurred to me that I might become a mother.