Chapter 17

                                    

                                              
Copyright (c) 2015
                          
 Phyllis Zimbler Miller
                          
All rights reserved.

                          
Patricia Hearst, free on $1.5 million bail since November 19, 1976, returned to jail. A U.S. District Court judge denied a request for a reduction of her seven-year sentence for bank robbery. -- May 15, 1978
                          
St. Louis 1978
                          
     I pull in line behind the other cars waiting to drop off children at the Jewish day school. I restrain my impulse to honk at the other parents to hurry them up. I have a class to teach in 30 minutes.
                          
     "Now, Marcia, I won't be able to pick you and Leah up until 5:30 tonight so please make sure Leah gets enough snack or she'll be cranky."
                          
     "Aw, Mom, why do I have to be responsible for a kindergartener? She's such a baby."
                          
     "I am not," Leah says.
                          
     "It's not such a big thing.  And if she's cranky we all suffer."
                          
     It's our turn at the drop-off spot. Both girls unbuckle their seatbelts and blow me kisses.
                          
     "Have a good day," I call after them.
                          
     Usually the moment I drop the girls off my mind switches from the motherhood mode to the professor mode. But today Marcia's remark bothers me. Do I rely too much on Marcia to take care of her younger sister? Marcia is only 8, Leah 5. They're still babies in many ways. Marcia shouldn't have to be a mother already.
                          
     But Steve is useless with the children. Half the time he can't even remember what grade they're in. The children laugh it off, but I know it bothers them.
                          
     Yet it was my choice to have them both. Marcia finally started sleeping through the night when she turned one. By the time Marcia was two and able to ask for what she wanted, I figured I could handle another child. So for the second time I carefully planned the right night in my cycle to waylay Steve. Our coupling didn't work the first month, but it did the second.
                          
     And at first Marcia was happy to have a sibling. For long periods of time she'd rock the stroller back and forth to one of her own favorite records and sing to the baby. She'd show Leah off to her own friends -- "That's my baby sister."
                          
     As Leah grew and could do more things I relied on the two of them to entertain each other. "Mommy has to grade two more papers.  Could you please play for just a little while longer? Then I promise to take you to the park." But outings to the park evaporated as I became more well-known in my field and therefore more in demand.
                          
     "Mommy will be away for two days giving a speech in New York.  Mrs. Hoffman will be here. And Daddy." But Daddy was only home late at night, long after the children had gone to bed. In the morning he would dawdle in the bathroom while Mrs. Hoffman or I got the children dressed and fed them breakfast. Then he would appear for a quick kiss and a breezy "Have a good day."
                          
     Jennifer, buck up. You knew what you were getting into. You bought it, hook, line and scientific sinker.
                          
     "Jennifer, will you marry me?" Steve whispered as we sat across from each other in the U of M library late one night at the start of our senior year.
                          
     "What?" I whispered back.
                          
     "Will you marry me?"
                          
     "You're asking me now? In here?"
                          
     "You know romantic settings aren't my thing. I'm a scientist. Practical over fantasy. But I do want to marry you."
                          
     I should have asked why. But it was obvious, wasn't it?  Because he loved me. I should have considered what the nature of love meant to Steve the scientist.