Susan Senator

Is there anything worse than worrying about your child’s safety and wellbeing? I don’t think so. Tonight I am getting Nat out of the shower, trying to shepherd Ben in, when I notice red streaks across Nat’s left shoulder, onto his chest, in the configuration of a hand. Cold claws in my stomach, twist of dread, then, “Nat! What is this?”

“Yes,” he says, which is how he answers any question. “Mommy will go away.”
“No, Nat, I want to know what is this? How did this happen?”
He can’t answer these kinds of open-ended questions. He thinks I know the answer, and says, “Yes.” And then, “Mommy go away.”
I study the welts and want to cry. He knows this. He looks alarmed. He thinks he’s in trouble. He can’t stand my histrionics. But I want to pull him to me and make those ugly marks go away. I can no more pull him to me than I can make him talk to me. It would be inappropriate, (he is naked, holding a towel) and he would not like it: he has already told me twice to leave him alone.

Where did these marks come from? Did someone do this to him, or did he do it to himself? He is not beyond self-injurious behavior. He used to bite his arm all the time; thank God he almost never does that now. So why the scratches? No incident reports in the notebook, no phone call about today.

Sometimes I wonder about his bus drivers. Would they hurt him? But then, would he go smiling into the bus if they did?

In fact, he smiles so much these days, I have to figure the most obvious: he did it to himself. Ned takes a look at it. He looks at me, and shrugs. Dry skin, maybe? I sigh, and relief starts to crackle through me, as I realize this is probably the cause. “Okay, Nat, do you want some lotion on it?”

“Yes,” he says and eagerly goes into the bathroom with me, watching, enthralled as I smeared Aquifor on his skin. I rub the gloppy ointment in, hoping to soothe whatever it is and whatever caused it, choked by my inadequacy, and all of the pent-up love I feel for this child of mine that I can never quite express to him.