ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Miami Herald, The (FL)
December 6, 1998
Author: ANA VECIANA-SUAREZ, Herald Columnist

Mama, don't travel.

Sometimes I think that will be the title of the song my children will sing to me the next time I waltz in through the door, smiling hopefully and apologizing with trinkets purchased at airport stores.

Mama, don't travel.

Maybe that will be the epitaph on my tombstone. Certainly it seems that these past three months I've slept in too many beds other than my own. Is this good? Is it bad? Depends who you ask. Good for career, bad for family life.

Mama, don't travel.

The other afternoon I called home from a public phone in another time zone. The rings echoed in my ear, drowning out the airport gate announcements overhead. I counted them, playing a silly little game. If they answer after an odd number of rings, they've been thinking of me. If it's an even number, the family hasn't missed me. I'm not really sure anymore which I want.

I want them to miss me, to need me. Yet I don't want them to suffer on my account, because of what I do.

After an even number of rings, one of the younger boys answers. His voice turns high-pitched in delight. A story about school follows. I find it hard to concentrate, fearful that I might miss the call to board. Instantly, I feel guilty. I think it is a disease of the working mother, this guilt, and it is exacerbated by distance and days away.

His younger brother gets on the phone. Actually, he wrests the receiver from his older brother and barely gets out a couple of words before a fight ensues. Hundreds of miles away, without the possibility of enforcement, I hiss: "Cut it out this minute.''

In a way I am happy to have heard the fight. It brings me closer to home. It makes me think that all is well. I tell myself that as long as they are fighting -- a common occurrence in a house with siblings -- nothing is seriously wrong. Still, I wonder where the baby sitter is, and why she hasn't turned up to referee the struggle over the phone.

Mama, don't travel.

I call another night, after a busy day in which not all turned out as planned.

Where are you? one of my kids ask. I have to think about it.

When are you coming home? Soon, soon. But not soon enough.

Why are you always gone? I'm not. It has just seemed that way these past few weeks.

Most of the time, when I am gone, my family marches on stoically. The children attend school, the husband goes to work, the meals are cooked, the laundry washed. In fact, I am told that when I'm not around, the kids do wonderfully. They eat breakfast without complaining, do their homework without flipping on the TV, and go to sleep at bedtime without being told. It's as if, abandoned by their mother, they might as well behave.

Honestly, that kind of bothers me, to be so dispensable. In fact, that feeling of dispensability has cost me. I can't get out of a hotel with less than a $30 long-distance tab: the price of worry.

Mama, don't travel.

Every journey has an end, and I return on a weekday afternoon in time to see two little boys, in matching school uniforms, running from the bus stop. They freeze in their tracks when they see me, then bound even faster for home.

They hug my knees. I mess up their hair. They smell of sweat and playground dirt and cafeteria food, the best smell in the world.

What did you bring us? they demand in unison.

Mama, travel if you must, but don't forget to buy.

Edition: Final Section: Tropic Page: 38 Copyright (c) 1998 The Miami Herald