Journey Home

On one of the many fateful days my mother forgot me at school

By: Marie Ronnander

An entire hour has now passed and I am still waiting in Mrs. Wibell’s room to be picked up from my 100th day of third grade. My teal puffer and sparkly pink mittens, long ago given up, sit in a pile on the chair next to me while I look intensely out the frosted window. Each tick of the clock maintains a rhythm with the impatient tapping of Mrs. W’s foot. My mom has abandoned me once again, and I desperately need freedom. 

I hastily begin putting on the winter layers while casually adding, “hey Mrs. Wibell? I’m going to go to the bathroom.” 

With another flick through her Fit Over 50, she mumbles, “Mhm. Don’t get lost, sweety.” And I begin the escape. 

Dragging two half-full gallons of Hawaiian Punch (brought to ring in the one-hundredth day) behind me, I hustle out the door and down the hallway. In a minute I’m standing in the frigid Wisconsin air with two miles left on my journey. The Charlie-Check-First anti-kidnapping campaign is running through my head as I cross my first street. Strangers are dangers. 

Hot anger is coursing through me. How could I be forgotten? Am I not her number one priority? The sun her world revolves around? What else could she possibly be thinking about other than her own daughter? There is no way a job is that time-consuming. I scrawl out, “I AM MAD AT YOU MOM” furiously in the nearest snowbank. Then quickly erase it out of guilt. 

Rounding the last corner to my house I am nearly in tears. My arms are sore, my hands are cold, and my tummy is grumbling. Grunting up the last steps I finally reach the door and… it is locked. That’s it. I have no choice. With my head hanging I walk to the neighbors and timidly tap the door. 

It opens. “Mom forgot me at school again,” I flash puppy eyes with an innocent smile, and he hands me the phone without another word.