Sally and Billy in Babyland
Chapter 1
Sally and Billy thought they were from a happy family but they had no good examples of happy families to compare themselves with and so they got along as best they could. Sally was the eldest and had entered an age of sullen detachment, modeled after many of the girls she admired at school. Billy was full of hope and enthusiasm, conditions that Sally knew Billy would abandon as soon as he came to understand the world.
Their parents tried very hard to make a happy family. On paper, things were fine. Each parent had a good job in the city at an office building with a coffee shop in the lobby. They lived in a house too big for them in a nice neighborhood with wide, smooth sidewalks and rules about cleaning up after your dog. Their father took his turns patrolling for the neighborhood watch, and their mother hosted the candle and jewelry parties every third month, as expected.
And they did things together as a family whenever possible, which wasn’t often because of the preponderance of sports teams that Father took Billy to, and the dance, cheer leading, and horse riding lessons that Mother took Sally to.
But this day they would be together and would meet for a picnic.
As was often the case for the family, it wasn’t enough to just go on a picnic. They couldn’t just go to the local park with neighbors and eat on the grass. It had to be more of an event, and they were meeting at a special, and exclusive, place for picnics.
Their schedules on that Saturday morning meant Sally would be with her mother in the Lexus. It was a nice-enough car but Mother didn’t allow Sally to eat inside of it and there wasn’t a television to watch.
Sally would rather have made such a long drive in her father’s Land Rover. There were video screens on the seat backs and father always kept snacks and drinks inside the built-in cooler.
Billy was riding in the Land Rover, as it so often worked out. During a ride this long Billy would have watched two movies, whereas Sally sighed with boredom 137 times.
At last they arrived, one car following the other like pachyderms, and turned off of the highway at a place with no stores or restaurants, which seemed odd to Sally.
They followed a bumpy road into a vast wilderness area with hills, lakes, and dark forests.
“Where are we?” Sally asked.
Mother smiled back at her from the front seat, glowing with pride. “This is where we’ll picnic. Isn’t it wonderful?”
Sally scoffed. “If it’s so wonderful, why isn’t anyone else picnicking?”
“Not everyone has the opportunities you do to enjoy the world.” She glanced back at Sally but this time with raised eyebrows in warning.
The bumpy road turned into a gravel road, and then the gravel gave way to tall grass. Mother honked and honked her horn until Father slowed to a stop. Then Mother got out of her car and approached Father’s SUV. And not slowly, like a cop, but almost running as she fumed in anger.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” she asked.
“The impressive stuff is up ahead,” he said.
“My car can’t drive off-road.” Mother motioned toward Father’s SUV with a limp wave. “It’s not a Range Rover.”
“Mine is a Land Rover,” Father said. “I don’t like Range Rovers.”
“I don’t care what kind of fucking rover it is. I can’t drive any farther.”
“Relax,” he said. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“There’s no service out here.”
Once they were together in Father’s Land Rover, Billy whispered to Sally, “Why’s Mom so mad?”
Sally was surprised Billy had even noticed, as he always seemed busy with the games on his phone. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“Do you understand?”
Sally shook her head. Why and when her mother became that angry was still a mystery.
Father winked in the mirror at Billy. “What do you think of this, Champ?”
Billy looked away from the television screen. “What are we going to do?”
“Hike in the woods.”
Billy considered this for a moment.
“It’s something you can tell your friends about tomorrow,” Father said, his voice resonating in the cabin of the SUV.
They drove to the edge of the forest and parked.
“Can we eat?” Billy asked. “I’m hungry.”
“No,” Mother said. “We’re hiking first. And besides, I’m intermittent fasting and it’s not time for me to eat, yet.”
“Well I’m not intermittent fasting,” Sally said.
“Maybe you should be,” Mother replied quickly.
# # #
With water bottles and granola bars in their backpacks, they set off. Sally and Billy wore hiking boots on their feet, sun blocking insect repellent on their skin, and wide-brimmed hats on their heads.
At first it was fun and exciting to walk through the woods. Sally was the first to realize that ‘hiking’ meant walking for a long time over rough ground through prickly trees and scratchy shrubs.
Billy stayed close to Mother and Father in spite of his being easily distracted by rocks and sticks, but Sally soon lagged behind. Then she used thirst as an excuse to stop walking.
“Keep up,” father urged. “We won’t conquer the world standing in one place.”
The hike wore on.
Sally and Billy trudged along in silence through the forest, following Mother and Father at a safe distance. The trail was overgrown and there were no markers, but everyone seemed confident that Father would know where they were going. Father seemed most confident of all, and led the way through the trees, pausing only to admire outcroppings of rocks or fallen trees.
Up ahead, Father and Mother were having a heated conversation but Sally couldn’t hear what they said. That was not a problem to Sally. Father and Mother had always spoken in heated conversations. Heated conversation was how they spoke about everything.
Usually, Mother exclaimed about an urgent deadline, and Father responded in an agitated tone about a conflicting deadline. Mother, now equally agitated, explained why her urgency was greater, and that Father must pay more attention in the future.
Sally had seen her friends’ parents decide things in the same way, but some of those fathers used their loudest voice to get their way, just as some of the mothers used cutting insults. But almost all of them started with heated conversations.
None of it looked like fun to Sally.
Father frequently stormed off in anger, and Mother almost always was brought to the brink of tears that could only be halted with a large glass of wine.
Sally caught up to them at the next fallen tree and overheard more about what was at issue.
“I’ve had this planned for months,” Mother said. “I have to have adult conversation. It’s my one night without the kids.”
“But it’s my poker night,” Father said as he kicked at a mushroom growing on the tree trunk rotting into the ground.
“You didn’t put it in the calendar.”
“Because I play poker every month.”
“And I only do this twice a year. So I’m sorry.”
“Well I’m sorry too.”
Sally knew neither one was sorry. What they meant was, ‘too bad.’
