Her name was Esmee.

I could never escape from her screaming gentility.  She could shout across the kindergarten classroom without moving her lips, without even knowing she was doing it, without even knowing that I was fuming inside because I was the only one who seemed to hear it.  Her spine always branched off from the worn, rickety kids chairs in a perfect curve to position her head above the rest of ours like a painting from the eighteenth century. I hated her in every sensible way that an insensible hate could be expressed.  

I suppose who needed a reason to hate Esmee, when she wore bows in her hair every day, as if she could claim hair bows for herself, as if she deserved to have a trademark thing, as if she was worthy to be known for something as simple as style.  I often found myself wondering whether her mom would buy her all the outfits that she wanted, and all of the matching hair bows that went along with them. Why was her mom so much more generous than mine? I wondered if her mom had taught her the decorum that she would shove down everyone's throats every day.  

My most vivid memory of Esmee was while I was walking into the paradise that was school one morning, I couldn’t stop smiling.  It was the day that I could show-off my favorite stuffed animal, Ellie the Elephant, at show and tell. Looking up at the barn-like building with its chipping red paint and worn wooden sign reading “Wightwood School”, I couldn’t wait to get inside.  I wanted to play with my friends after not seeing them in the century that was a day.

As I was trotting along with my mom’s long strides through the small parking lot, I looked to the dark SUV that had just arrived and saw Esmee swanking out of her mom’s car, waiting for her mom to open the trunk.  I looked on in curiosity and once the trunk began opening at the command of her mom’s keys, a mountain of stuffed animals was unveiled. It felt as if a treasure chest was unlocked to reveal a priceless bounty of bright, new stuffed animals.  The best way to describe that moment for me is that I was starstruck, then filled with sadness, and finally anger.

I was entranced and repulsed all at the same time.  They were all beautiful but they were born out of a love that I thought I had never experienced, and for that I hated them.

And I looked down at my tattered grey elephant who had once upon a time been white and free of tiny fuzzballs, and I wondered how my Ellie could ever face up to Esmee’s bright, clean trunk full of stuffed animals.  In no world would my stuffed animals measure up to hers. I speculated on how she had convinced her mom to buy them, while I had begged my mom and still never got my way.

I couldn’t believe that her mom did that for her, had bought her so many new stuffed animals at one point or another that Esmee accumulated enough of them to fill the trunk of her modern-day carriage.  I couldn’t understand what had brought her mom to do that, and why mine hadn’t. The only logical explanation was that her mom was superior to my mom.

My mood was ruined and I beckoned to my mom to ask me what was wrong by pouting, hunching over, and dragging my feet, but she didn’t bite.  And in my eyes, this further proved my theory that my mom wasn’t a very good mom. So I kept on walking with her, hunched over in hopes that she would notice and prove me wrong.  I found that it was becoming quite uncomfortable to walk like that as we entered the new environment filled with the sound of rapid stomps and giggles, and headed towards my classroom.  Regardless, I held firm in my hunch to prove something to myself (of what I’m still unsure).

By the time we had arrived in my classroom, Esmee and her stuffed animals were a distant memory while my anger at my mother took the forefront.  Bitter thoughts swirled around in my head as I started taking count of all the things that my mom didn’t do for me. She didn’t buy me stuffed animals unless it was a holiday, she didn’t let me sleep with all of my stuffed animals, she didn’t pick me up right after school, she didn’t let me have a cat, and she certainly never filled the trunk of her car with stuffed animals for me.  

She turned me towards her in the doorway of my large, colorful classroom and kneeled down to my level.  I turned my head slightly avoiding eye contact while she grabbed both of my arms and leaned in to kiss my cheek.  I made no motion to hug her back as she continued to tell me, “Goodbye honey, I love you.”

It was so hard for me to hold it in but I forced myself to keep my mouth shut.  I had to keep my silent protest against her that I had formed while walking in.

I brought my eyes up to hers for a split second and nodded, then I turned and dashed towards the play corner near the blue bench and the octagon window.  I plopped myself down with Ellie and began dismantling the blocks that formed a small city left from another child's imagination and began stacking a city of my own.

Eventually, knowing full well that I hadn’t said goodbye to my mom, I turned towards the doorway finally throwing in the towel with my silent protest.  An emotional uprising had formed inside of me and I went willingly with this new instinct. I found an empty space where she had squatted just a few minutes ago and I started to panic.  I thought to myself ‘where did she go? Why would she leave me?’

Running to the blue bench, I climbed up towards the octagon shaped window that overlooked the parking lot of the school.  Starring out I searched dreadfully for my mom’s figure. I finally found my mom’s backside getting smaller as she walked to her light blue Honda Odyssey and I cried out for her.

I prayed for my words to reach her ears as I screamed, “Mom!”

Silence.

“Mommy!” I pleaded.  

I waited for her to turn around, to smile at me, to tell me everything was going to be ok, but she didn’t, she just kept on walking.  And as the seconds passed, I felt more and more heavy and more and more empty. At that point I didn’t care about my silent protest anymore or the trunk full of stuffed animals or the cat that I never got.  I just wanted my mom to come back.

Then I dropped on my butt as a stone fell into my stomach and bubbles formed in my throat.  The only way I could release them was through wails and sobs.

My plump, nurturing Kindergarten teacher, Miss Elizabeth, rushed over to me hurriedly and leaned over covering me in shadow and asked, “What’s wrong?  What's wrong?”

I looked up into her worried eyes with my red face, my tear stained cheeks, and my saliva filled mouth and bawled, “I didn’t get to say goodbye!  I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

Goodbye meant I didn’t need her, but I did need her, and she never got to know that.

For the first time that I needed my mom, she wasn’t there for me.  And the cavern that was left inside of me when I realized she was gone was enough to have me pleading for the mom that had always been there.  I just wanted the person that put up with me even when I was being irrational, which was most of the time. And in that moment Esmee didn’t irritate me so much anymore, because I didn’t need her mom or a trunk full of stuffed animals, or her stylish hair bows. I had my mom and she gave me so much already.

This sorrow didn’t last though, when I saw Esmee jaunting into the classroom with her mom my hate rushed back into me like a tsunami filling the hole left from my mom’s absence.  I gladly welcomed this hate. I snuffled and stared on with a mixture of curiosity and resentment. I stopped crying temporarily to focus on Esmee.

I watched perfect Esmee turn around towards her perfect mom and executed a perfect hug and said a perfect goodbye.  All over again I started wondering why she got to say goodbye to her mom, why she didn’t need her mom and I did. I needed to prove my independence to the invisible spectators that I felt so influenced by.  Immediately I stopped crying and rushed to wipe away the tears staining my cheeks and stood up abruptly.

Miss Elizabeth stood statuesquely watching me as if a switch flipped as I walked over to my seat and started drawing calmly as if I hadn’t been drowning in loss just moments ago.  I decided then and there that I wouldn’t undervalue my mom anymore, and I would learn how to take care of myself when she wasn’t there for me. This new me would start when my mom gets me later and Esmee would look at me in awe rather than the other way around.  

I grabbed the purple marker from the center of the table, sat up stick straight, and began drawing delicately.

That night I made sure that I kissed my mom goodnight before I climbed into bed with my Ellie, who would never be put away for something or someone shinier.