The Worst Parent Ever
by Melissa Lore
At my son's nine-year-old well visit, the doctor asks to check his private parts. I can read the man's eyes over his surgical mask. He does a quick check, correct number of organs, then wheels over to the computer to check the notes.
"We knew about that last year," I say. "That's not new news."
Last year it was worse. He was only eight, and the doctor was a woman, fifteen years younger than me.
Then again, this year there's more of it. Quite a bit more. Pubic hair like a Portuguese pirate. God help us.
"Usually with boys the first thing we see is an enlargement of the testicles," says the doctor. "But there's none of that going on here."
"He's had body odor since he was four," I say. "They took an x-ray of his wrist to check for precocious puberty, but it came back normal. And there hasn't been any, uh, behavioral stuff." After last year's visit, I'd bought my son a book about growing up, but he yelled at me for being inappropriate. He's almost five feet tall, a giant for his age, a giant with pubic hair, but inside he's one hundred per cent little boy, and I'd like to keep it that way a while longer.
"I'm weird," my son tells me.
"You're not weird."
He leans in to try to give me a kiss, but we're both wearing our homemade masks with the galaxy-print fabric and the elastic loops around our ears.
The doctor is still scrolling through the notes. "Has he been exposed to anything at home?"
My heart stops for a fraction of a second. Exposed to anything?
"Any medications, creams? Anything with testosterone?"
Heart beats again. "Oh. No. I don't take anything, Dad doesn't take anything."
"Okay, then. I guess that's just you, buddy."
We talk for a minute about the kid's dandruff and about how he's holding up since school got cancelled. The doctor takes one last look at the computer screen. "Okay," he says again. "I guess that's just you."
In the car, we take off our homemade masks and perform our usual melodrama about how good it feels to breathe fresh air. My son wants to know if he can have a freeze pop. His sister went to the doctor last week, and she got a freeze pop.
"That's because she had to get shots," I say.
"Not fair."
I look at him in the rearview mirror. Never in his short life has it been more clear that nothing — not one small or large thing — is fair.
"What do you want me to do?"
He doesn't say anything. He knows we don't go to the store for things like freeze pops anymore. I feel like a jerk for asking the question. Hiding behind my powerlessness, so he can't be mad at me. He kicks the back of my seat. My powerlessness has never stopped him from being mad at me before.
"Would you at least add time to my Nintendo Switch?"
I pull the car into the driveway. "Look what a beautiful day it is. Why do you want to be inside playing video games?"
He kicks my seat harder. "You're the worst parent ever."
The door slams behind him.
I sit in the car with the window down and think about what I said to the doctor. No behavioral stuff. I was talking about the squelchy secret pleasures of puberty, but what about these sudden rages, the wild swings from kisses to kicks? Is that "just him," too? Or are all nine-year-old boys like this? Normally I'd bring it up with his friends' moms at school pickup, get my fix of commiseration. Now I suppose I could send a couple text messages.
My favorite Dead song comes on the car stereo, and I lean my seat all the way back. I find I don't particularly want to go inside. I think for a second about going for a drive, all by myself — anywhere, anywhere — but in the end I just sit until the song runs out. I should have outgrown my Grateful Dead phase years ago, but I never have. Listening to it makes me feel twenty again. Twenty and childless and breathing fresh air.
I guess that's just me.
Melissa Lore received an MFA in fiction from Columbia University, where she was awarded the Lini Mazumdar Fellowship and graduated with disctinction. Her work has appeared in Zyzzyva, The Normal School, Split Lip, and other publications, and she was a finalist for Mid-American Review's 2020 Sherwood Anderson Fiction Prize. She is at work on a short story collection about motherhood. When not writing, Melissa performs as GosHawk in Rock Street, a kid-friendly hip-hop band. She lives in Portsmouth, NH, with her husband, their two children, and two giant sheepadoodles.
