Read Exodus: A memoir for Free Online

breath?

II

    mercy
    The goal, the reason for moving, for starting a new life, was to heal and recover, but being a parent made the matter more urgent than abstract. I worried I’d never be the mother my son deserved if I didn’t fix what was wrong with me. No matter how much I gave my son, he would always have to deal with a mother who was anxious and overwhelmed. What were his chances, then, of developing a healthy approach to living?
    A few months after we moved, I was driving Isaac to school, and we came up over the hill that leads to an old college campus, an assortment of dignified buildings gracing an enormous slope of land behind our lake. The sun was just rising behind the buildings on the left, golden rays melting into the illuminated treetops.
    “Mom, why do you always say to eat my breakfast because the kids in Africa are starving? If I eat it, how does the food get toAfrica? I don’t understand,” he said from the backseat. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the thoughtful expression on his face.
    “It’s an expression, Isaac,” I said. “I’m trying to teach you not to take food for granted, or waste it, because there is hunger in other parts of the world. It’s bad behavior to waste food when there are others who need it desperately.”
    “But, Mom, why don’t they have enough food in Africa?”
    “Because they’re poor.”
    “But why? Why is America not poor?”
    I tried to explain to him the differences between first- and third-world countries, but nothing I said seemed to satisfy him. He started coming up with ideas about how we could make Africa wealthy.
    “Mom, what if we opened businesses in Africa? What if we opened restaurants? Why can’t we just go and bring them food from here?”
    I told him about some of the issues that were preventing progress from being made in Africa. There was tribal violence, lack of education, lack of safety, lack of cleanliness and health care. I tried to summarize delicately; I wanted to educate, not traumatize.
    He still wrinkled his forehead, as if determined to solve world hunger in our brief conversation, before he was dropped off at school for the day. As if he wanted to approach his studies with an unburdened conscience.
    “Hey, I have an idea for you,” I said. “You know there are already some people who are making a big difference in developing countries all over the world. Those people are effective because they’re very educated; they know what they’re doing and how to do it. If you keep doing well in school like you already are, someday you’ll get to go to a great college, and while you’re there, I bet youcan figure out the solution to world hunger. That’s the amazing thing about getting an education,” I said, “the more you know, the more you’ll be able to accomplish.”
    “Okay,” Isaac said, “but it will be a lot of years until I go to college.”
    I dropped him off in front of the school building and drove away smiling. I had this feeling that somehow my sacrifice had already paid off. My son was already embarking on a journey of education that could take him anywhere. Every door in the world might open for him, if he chose to knock on it. If I continued to nurture his curiosity and courage, he would never feel the sensation of walls closing in on him the way I do all the time. Wasn’t this enough for now?
    One morning soon after that conversation, as we were driving down the same roads, my son told me about waking up in his father’s car and finding himself alone. After waiting for a while, he proceeded to open the car door, cross the street by himself, and wander around a few shops to see if his father was in one of them. Eventually Eli came out of the fish market and saw that the car was empty, at which point he went back to look for Isaac. He found him, looking lost, at the cash registers of a supermarket.
    “I was very scared,” Isaac told me. “I waited for Dad, but he didn’t come back.”
    My fists