CoAbode

'Nice Girls Can Be Naughty': A series of articles, By Erica Miner
Excerpted From Erica's Novel, Travels With My Lovers:

He’d always seemed to be a mirrored image of his dad – “little Eric,” we sometimes called him – and I’d always thought that his affection for me reflected the genuine admiration and supportiveness that Eric always demonstrated towards me. But lately, my husband had gotten less attentive; and strangely, Julian had filled the gap, vacillating between an annoying clinginess and a fierce, unpredictable independence.

I tried to remember how I had felt at his age and suddenly flashed on the exhilarating freedom I’d felt when I had put my own mother through a similar torment. Too impatient to wait for her, I walked home alone from my urban grade school, crossing a busy, dangerous thoroughfare all by myself. When I reached home I found her, head bowed over the kitchen table, crying bitter tears of worry and grief. It was one of the few times I ever saw my mother cry. Now, I supposed, it was my turn to be fraught with anxiety over my own missing child.

*************************************************************

Personal Narrative By Erica Miner:

"For the first time in my life as a mom, thousands of miles and an ocean away from home, I was experiencing the burdens, not only of being solely responsible for my kids’ welfare but the nagging feelings of neglect from my husband. Why is it that moms always suffer the brunt of these types of neglect? It seemed that “little Eric” had taken it upon himself to be grown up far beyond his years in wanting to make up for his father’s lack of attention towards me; but underneath it all, my little boy was still just that – a kid, not mature enough to divest himself of his need for mom’s nurturing. And I was the one who had to make up for any lack from his father’s attention, either towards me or towards my son.

Nonetheless, it seemed to me, as I flailed over the sudden disappearance of my kid, that most mothers seem to experience at least one incident of temporary insanity when a child suddenly goes missing. There is no greater test to one’s mettle as a mom than facing the possibility that something terrible might have happened to our kid; or worse, that we might be at fault. Haven’t we all been through this, at a shopping mall or a theme park or… dare I say it – on some kind of foreign turf?"