The Unlikely Mother

Eve Marx

Atlantic City, New Jersey

Word Count 1191

I never imagined mothering a human, only dogs, which might explain why my son, at a very young age, announced his name was Sam The Dog and requested his cereal bowl be placed on the floor next to his fur siblings while they ate their morning kibble. I was alarmed at the suggestion but not surprised. My mothering style was to treat the child much the same way I did the dogs, setting boundaries, keeping to a schedule, doling out treats and rewards. My expectations for my very young child were not so different from expectations I had for my pets; i.e. don’t wreck the furniture and provide me with love and entertainment.

Although I was given full responsibility and trained and parented a Pekingese puppy, the so-called runt of the litter I was given at the age of 8, I severely doubted my ability to mother a human having had a dreadful mothering experience. My own mother, who owned a children’s clothing store but disliked kids, repeatedly told me never to have children. They'll ruin your life, she said. My mother and I were roommates for a few years when I was a teen; I say roommates because although we did live together, ours was not a typical mother/daughter relationship. There was no grandmotherly presence, either; I more or less raised myself, becoming to a large extent feral, instinctively experiencing a commonality with rescue cats and dogs.

My son grew older and so did his fur siblings. At first the main difference was he could get his own dinner. As the dogs moved into their dotage, died, and were replaced by other dogs, my son entered his teen years which were marked by turbulence. Even when there was no drama, he increasingly became more independent and autonomous and less interested in what I did or said. He was immersed in his music, his games, his friends, and eventually girls. He had an older girlfriend. Once, during a heated argument we had about the condition of his room, he asked what would it take to keep me on the other side of the door, to which I stupidly replied, a 92 grade point average, which I immediately regretted as this kid could get a 92 with his eyes closed. For years I was pissed at myself for not setting the bar higher.

The year my son was 15 and spring break rolled around, he told me his friends were going to Utah to ski, or the Bahamas to swim; in other words, taking a flashy family vacation our family could ill afford. My husband’s work schedule allowed for no time off and he was adamant he wasn’t traveling. So where are we going, the kid said. To the mall? I replied. Judging from the expression on his face, I could see that wouldn’t work. How about we go to Atlantic City, I said. Just the two of us.

I booked us two nights at Bally’s Hotel & Casino because you could get a great deal. Accommodations were cheap because they expected guests to gamble. Being in the company of a minor and seeing that minors weren’t allowed anywhere gambling was present, and since every public entrance to the hotel meant passing through a gambling area, we were obliged to find alternative entrances and exits. We quickly sussed out the locations of the service entrances, and along with delivery truck drivers and bus boys and random service people we traversed grungy, poorly lit back corridors, past the hotel kitchen and laundry, dodging carts holding mountains of dirty dishes and soiled linens.

I grew up in Atlantic City and wanted to show my son my favorite haunts. He wanted to see every street on the Monopoly board, so we did that first. We rode the jitney. We walked the entire length of the boardwalk. I showed him the two places I lived on Raleigh and Atlantic Avenues and on impulse rang the doorbell at the home of a childhood friend on Plaza Place where I was greeted by their childhood name for me, Millicent, which nobody else ever called me. I introduced him to my all-time favorite Jersey shore foods; pizza, of course, by the slice; Steel’s Fudge; the White House Sub Shop on Arctic Avenue. I was super grateful how nice he was our second morning when I woke up to unexpectedly find I'd gotten my period. I was perimenopausal and never knew when I might get it. My son offered to go out and find a drugstore and purchase tampons, an embarrassing thing for a 15-year-old male, I thought, and how kind.

We had time to kill and it wasn’t exactly beach weather so we wound up playing multiple rounds of mini golf. As a kid, I was very good at this game. I played often and had a light touch with the putter and the ability to strategize and focus. My son had only played the game a few times and wasn’t terribly good at it. I have to say I felt an unmotherly glee trouncing him. There was one awkward moment on our last day when the concession operator jovially greeted us for coming back and mistook us for a couple. I can’t remember his exact words, but he clearly thought we were together, like girlfriend and boyfriend. My son towers over me and is dark and handsome. I thought this was hysterically funny.

He didn't.

I corrected the man.

This is my son, I said, sternly.

Huh, the guy said back. We collected our clubs and the scorecard and the tiny nub of pencil he gave us to keep score. My son played extra badly and I knew he was upset.

C’mon, I said. You should be flattered to be mistaken for a grownup.

Yeah, I got the hairy gene from you, he replied. He’d been shaving since the age of 12 and his legs were so hairy it looked like he was wearing knee socks. At home, once when he yelled for a towel, I opened the bathroom door to toss one in and was shocked to glimpse a young bear in the shower.

We played on. His game got better. He won or I let him win. Afterwards we got frozen custard at Kohr Brothers further up the boardwalk. I teased him that if he looked old enough to be my boyfriend, he looked old enough to walk through the casino. It was our last night in Atlantic City.

Double dare you, I said. Just keep walking. I knew if we were caught, as the so-called adult, I would be held responsible. As it turned out, it was simple. Nobody gave us the slightest glance. We got in the gaudily mirrored elevator and laughed and laughed.

Years later, he told me he ranked our trip to Atlantic City as one of his favorite vacations.

You’re kidding, I said.

I still think about that cheesesteak, he said. My own sub of choice is the regular Italian, with hot peppers.

You get your love of junk food from me, alas, I said. Along with the hairy gene.

Eve is a journalist and author currently scraping out a tiny living crafting police reports for newspapers in New York and Oregon. She is the author of What’s Your Sexual IQ?, The Goddess Orgasm, 101 Things You Didn’t Know About Sex and other titles bearing some relation to her stint editing Penthouse Forum and other ribald publications. She makes her home in a rural seaside community near Portland, OR with her husband, R.J. Marx, a jazz saxophonist, and Lucy, their dog child. Follow Eve on Twitter here.