Anniversary Weekend
Chapter 3 - Lunch at Las Brisas
“We’ll eat at Las Brisas,” said my husband as we walked up the path from the beach to the hill in Laguna Beach. It was the third day of our extended anniversary weekend, a day we had left entirely to the way we felt, after spending the first two in Los Angeles.
Distracted by the waves crashing against the rugged boulder islands dotting the shoreline below, I did not register what he meant. We laughed at birds attempting to land on the rocks only to be shooed away by the splashing surf.
The sun cast warmth and brightness. The landscape filled us with a sense of calm. Nowhere to hurry, no schedule to check off. My husband’s soft hand was always ready to receive mine, and our eyes smiled each time they met.
At the top of the hill, just off the path, a sign welcomed us to Las Brisas. In the past, I had always looked at that restaurant from the corner of my eye, a place I had long admired but never imagined entering.
I pointed toward it with a question in my eyes.
“Yes,” he said with an assuring smile, amused by my surprise.
“I didn’t realize what you meant earlier! Thank you!”
“But we’re not even inside yet! Why would you thank me?”
“Because you thought of it and that’s all that matters.”
They seated us in no time, under the fiery gazes of larger groups waiting for larger tables to become available.
With the weather our ally, we chose to sit on the patio. Across from each other, I faced the street and part of the patio, while my husband faced one other table, and, beyond it, the ocean.
“You are missing the view,” he said.
“I have had the best view in the past 18 years and wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world…”
Removed from the mundane, we had no eyes for anyone else around us, not even our phones. Instead, memories from our wedding day kept us company.
“We need to do this more often,” we said as we anticipated the waiter’s appearance.
We always say that about things we like but rarely do. That weekend, we said it about everything, from the moment we drove away from home.
After we ate, we swapped seats while waiting for my coffee to arrive, as my man insisted I should enjoy the ocean view as well.
“He’s going to bring you the check and the coffee to me,” he said, expecting the waiter to have memorized where each of us had sat just moments before.
He was right!
Like giddy, naughty children, we giggled once the waiter was at a safe distance.
It was during that slow-sipped coffee that I noticed a young couple at a table close to us. The mother held their child, too young to sit in a highchair. Her face was bright with a peaceful smile, while balancing the child on one arm, and slowly handling the fork with her other hand to eat.
The couple talked and their smiles emanated kindness, patience, peace.
“What is it?” my husband asked noticing a change in my voice and my slightly blurry eyes behind my glasses.
“I never had that…”
“What?”
“Maybe time has erased my memories, but I just don’t remember myself bonding with my son.”
“What do you mean by bonding?”
I looked back at the couple.
“Just… enjoying him. Being with him without thinking of the next thing that had to be done. I just don’t remember the two of us playing, or me teaching him anything. Of course I sang to him, gave him baths, fed him… My sister taught him to walk. I always seemed to have something to do, some deadline to beat, some milestone to check off. Now you sleep, now you make pureed veggies for the baby… I don’t think I ever stopped to reflect on how I felt about being a mother. I just did… this mothering thing. And work. I do remember the worries—if he’d grown enough, if his teeth had poked through his gums…? And I was the only breadwinner.”
He listened and waited for me to continue. His eyes widened, his lips slightly parted. My love took my hands across the table. His thumbs caressed my skin, the way he always does when we walk together.
“After we came to America,” I continued, “it was different. You took him to his practices, we both went to his games, we both witnessed his growth. I had time with him when we walked from school, when I read to him at night so he could learn English. But there were times when I did not know how to raise him. What to tell him when he was naughty. Other mothers, at school… they always knew what to say, and had all the answers. I was new here. I did not know how school worked. People expected me to understand PTA, taquitos, brown bag lunch… I didn’t understand, and I was embarrassed to ask so I wouldn’t seem dumb. But THAT was dumb. Not asking. Not telling them I was new here… Not even you knew what I went through. I always thought something was wrong with me, that I should have knowledge of this stuff. It was really hard…”
My husband’s eyes were moist. I had only seen him that emotional once, when my mother was diagnosed with cancer just months before I was to move to the United States. Over the webcam, he had told me that if I chose to stay with her and my family, he’d respect my choice.
Now, on the sun-hugged patio at Las Brisas, my hands in his, I was soothed by his patience.
“I have just read something similar…”
It was my turn to listen.
“Let me send you… an article about this mother who wrote about the same feeling, of missing out on her child’s childhood and growth.”
I wiped my tears.
“So… I’m not alone…”
“Sadly, you are not.”
The couple was still at the table; the dad had picked up the baby who had become fussy, while the mom finished her meal. They smiled at each other the way they had before, unhurried, as though they had all the time in the world.
We left, our hands clasped.
It was the first time that I had opened up about motherhood. I felt lighter. My son was grown now, and it wasn’t too late to enjoy simply being his mother.
You are definitely not alone.