When Joan didn’t see her daughter, Alice, among the rest of the students who came pouring out of the grade school within seconds of the bell ringing, Joan went looking for her. She asked some teachers nearby and one of them said he had seen Alice headed for the playground on the other side of the school.
Sure enough, that’s where Joan found her eight-year-old daughter. She sat on one of the swings, head hanging as she stared at her feet, which kicked idly at the wood chips beneath her. Nora had been ready to berate her daughter for making her worry, but seeing her like this, Joan knew she couldn’t. Instead, she took a deep breath and slowly approached her daughter until she was standing right in front of her. She waited for Alice to acknowledge her, but after a few moments had passed and Alice still hadn’t looked up, Joan got down on one knee and tried to look up into her daughter’s face.
Alice turned her head away, refusing to look at her mom.
“You want to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Maria wouldn’t play with me today.” Her voice was a pathetic whine.
Joan felt her stomach twist itself into intricate knots. Maria and Alice had been friends for more than a year, which in grade school terms is practically an eternity. Maria’s family had even taken Alice with them on their family vacation the previous summer. Joan had been hoping the two would become lifelong friends.
“Why wouldn’t she play with you?”
“I don’t know. She wanted to play with Anne instead.” Alice was an expert pouter and now she pouted with all her might: lower lip protruded and curled over her chin, brow furrowed.
“Why can’t she play with both you and Anne?”
“I don’t know! I want to be friends with Anne, too, but they don’t want to be friends with me!” Alice crossed her arms over her chest and let out a massive sigh for such a small body.
“Did you ask if you could join them?”
“Of course I did!” Alice flopped her arms at her sides as she dealt with the hopeless situation of explaining obvious things to an adult. “They said it was a game for two people only!”
“What was the game?”
“I don’t know! Something they made up. Now they have a secret game together and I don’t know what it is and they’re going to have all sorts of fun and I can’t ever join in!” She crossed her arms again and slammed them into her own torso, as if punishing herself for being friendless.
Joan instinctively reached up and took hold of her daughter’s shoulders, too late to stop the self abuse, but maybe she could prevent the next round. “OK, you know what you need?”
“What?” Alice’s voice came out a low whimper and she still refused to look at her mom.
“Kelly Clarkson.”
This surprised Alice so much she finally looked up at her mom, one corner of her upper lip hitched skyward as she said, “Huh?”
“You’re going through a breakup. It hurts, I know, but these things happen. People come into your life and you think they’re going to stay forever, and then they leave for all sorts of reasons, or sometimes for no reason. It’s the circle of life, but you know what the good news is?”
“What?” Alice’s voice was slow and skeptical.
Joan burst into song. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! Stand a little taller! Doesn’t mean I’m lonely when I’m alone!”
When all else fails, making a fool of yourself in front of your children is almost sure to brighten their spirits. At least until they become teenagers. Then it’ll just make them deny ever knowing you, much less being related to you.
“Come on,” Joan said when she had finished singing. “It’s time for the essential step two in breakup recovery.”
Smiling, Alice jumped up out of her swing and took her mom’s hand. “What’s step two?”
“Ice cream.”
“I can have ice cream before dinner?”
“Only if you promise not to tell your dad.”
“Breakups are fun!”