Escape Points by Michele Weldon Page A

chair. Dr. Doshi was pleasant and reassuring. After Weldon’s visits and follow-ups, we were getting to be friends. This would go better than Weldon’s ear did, Dr. Doshi said, since we didn’t wait so long to come to him. Brendan winced when his ear was drained.Unlike Weldon, Brendan agreed not to wrestle for a week to let it heal. So it did.
    But in March of the next year, we were back. Dr. Doshi drained Brendan’s ear again, puncturing the engorged ear with what looked like an X-ACTO knife, then a surge of blood, a few black stitches, and it was bandaged. We went home. But a year later, Brendan’s ear appeared worse than Weldon’s. Dr. Doshi said plastic surgery can fix the ears, not like new, but they could be improved.
    Colin never got the ear, and I reminded him constantly to be sure he was wearing his headgear in practice. You would think wrestling made an athlete deaf as well. Colin said he didn’t care; it would be OK, he would even like it if he got the ear. He called it a badge of honor. It made me incredibly upset, and I hoped he was not trying to make me upset, as sons sometimes do, just to temperature-check my reactions.
    Because almost every time I look at Brendan and Weldon’s ears, I feel like crying.

6
Alone
    ----
1996–2010
    I had enough to do. I didn’t need the scrutiny. For several years after my divorce in 1996, I did not introduce my sons to anyone I dated, mostly to save myself from the boys’ interrogations and fears. First, I wanted to see if I even liked him enough to see him twice. Then, I could think about making introductions.
    Raising the boys alone without financial assistance or physical reprieve kept me occupied, if not impatient. Meeting Mr. Wonderful was not the highest priority. In the time since my divorce, most of my first dates were coincidentally the last dates because I couldn’t wait to get home and call a friend or one of my sisters to laugh.
    “How often are your boys away for the whole weekend?” one date asked.
    “Never.” I noticed a perceptible shift in his demeanor.
    The friend who fixed us up was apologetic when I told her on the phone.
    There was the Italian accountant with the creaseless pants who asked early on our first date if I had my marriage annulled. He wasCatholic and wanted to remarry, and didn’t see the point of going much further if I didn’t conform to canon law.
    Sure, some men were polite, attractive, and intelligent, but for years no sparks flew in my direction and no one was ever all that funny, interesting, or a better option than a hot bath, rented movie, or a stack of new magazines. I worked a lot—writing and teaching and giving seminars—and my kids were a lot. I didn’t want to risk crying, feeling insecure, or having to tell my sons I met someone and had no idea what would happen. Mommy doesn’t need a good time that badly. Dating strangers was scary—no sense risking ending up in pieces in the trunk of someone’s car just because you wanted to wear pretty shoes out to dinner.
    I understand I was afraid.
    The boys didn’t need any more surprises from a parent. I was predictable; I didn’t bring home any threats to their homeland security. I also had hundreds of papers to grade, articles to file for magazines and newspapers, books to research and write. I had to give speeches, go to conferences and meetings. I had to make dinners. I had to make lunches. I had to make breakfasts. It was easier to go to bed early, wake up early, and get on with my day.
    “He was so boring,” I told Dana, my former college roommate, on the phone after a nice date with a nice man who was nice looking. “I think he went through his entire day minute by minute in chronological order.”
    “Oh, honey,” Dana said. “They are all boring. You just forgot.”
    There were men I met in airports, on airplanes, or in shared cabs when I traveled for work. A man on a plane sitting in the row behind me and the boys—on our one and only trip to Disney