Keeping the Peace - Melody Cryns

“Moooommm!” Melissa shouted into the phone. “Jeremy hit me! Do something!”

Like I could do anything while sitting at my desk – working away. It was summer, in the early 1990’s, perhaps 1992 or 1993, maybe even before. I always had to figure out creative strategies for what to do with my three older kids when they were out of school for the summer. They were getting too old for daycare programs, yet not really old enough to be left alone. So I’d take them to the boys’ and girls’ club for the hours it was open, then dash back to work until I had to pick them up and take the kids home while my neighbor Lynn, who had a daycare business watching small kids, such as my own baby girl Megan, would watch the kids – except they were way older than all of her other kids, so they’d go home and Lynn would be there for them – most of the time it seemed to work out. I always dreaded summers.

“What can I do?” I said. “I’m at work. Work it out.”

“But Mom! Nooooooo! Jeremy won’t leave me alone!” Then I’d hear screaming.

“Go next door to Lynn’s right now,” I said, looking at the green monochrome computer screen and sighing…it was always something, every single day.

“No, I don’t wanna go over there, Mom. Can’t you get Jeremy to stop?”

“C’mon you guys – knock it off or I’ll have to call Lynn.”

Sometimes I felt as if I was raising my kids over the phone or in the car, especially when I worked two jobs or worked and went to school. Take the kids there, drop them off, pick them up and take them home for just an hour or s, then the phone calls began. It was inevitable. I thought about how nice it would be to divide myself or somehow teleport from one place to the next, but I never figured it out.

Later that night when I’d gone to my part-time evening job, Jeremy called me on the phone.

“Mommy, when are you coming home?” he said.

And at that moment I wished that I was there.