Covert Mom: Torching Time, Talking Rhymes

By Mariah Mottley

When I pulled into my driveway, everyone, including Auntie Jenn, was out on the basketball court, playing. I made my way over, dumping my work bag on the edge of the cement. Jenn is here for two weeks, and every day she is here it feels like Christmas.

She’s been picking the kids up from the babysitter, listening to them when they talk, doing art projects with them, and loading the dishwasher. When she is here, the house feels more like home; there are twice as many edgy cattle dogs lurking in the corners, twice as many Lamy fountain pens and bullet journals on the coffee table. When she is here, I feel connected to the past instead of moored at a distance from it. She calls me Mot, the nickname her father gave me. She is not a real aunt, just a pretend one; we were playmates as children, not siblings. We have the same taste in writing instruments and tweaked out dog breeds.

“How’s your day?” I asked.
“Turn out I’m still pretty good at this,” she answered, swinging up onto our blue hand-me-down pogo stick.

Up, down, up, down. Up, down. Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung.
“It just feels really normal when I do it,” she told me. “And I can do it for awhile.”

Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung.

She wore brown leather sandals, cutoff black jean shorts and a peach colored shirt. When she was a kid, Jenn was a dead ringer for Punky Brewster. Still is, really, just with salt and pepper hair, same freckles and hazel eyes. She has a tattoo of an actual friendship bracelet encircling her forearm, which, I’m certain is exactly what Punky herself would have chosen. Her leg muscles twitched each time she landed, but other than that, her body was eerily still with each impact. Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung.

I took out my phone, started recording, the laughter building up in my throat. Two minutes went by.
“You are a maniac,” I said.
“I went all the way around the block once, she said. “When I was eight, I think. I remembered that today, while I was bouncing. My mom counted and everything. I really had it figured out.”

She was still going, hair bouncing, tendons showing, a relaxed, blank, expression on her face. Ka-chung, ka-chung, ka-chung.
“Auntie Jenn is SO GOOD,” said my oldest daughter, who is in the habit of announcing the obvious.

The kids wanted to see if I could do it, too. Jenn stopped and handed me the pogo stick. I handled the faded blue handles cautiously. I hate falling. But I love impressing the kids. It took me three tries to stay upright; I dropped the F-bomb every time I lost my balance, which they love.
“Stay low,” Jenn offered, “You’ll remember once you feel it.”

I softened my knees and back, hit the sweet spot; I could tell because the kids all started shouting: “Look at Mom! Look at Mom!”

Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Ka-chung.

Each impact slammed me down some ancient neural pathway paved with hot sidewalks and playground sand, of burnt pretzel salt, smell of wet stone water fountain basins. City childhood.

When Sean pulled up he found us taking turns filming one another in slow motion on our phones. I thought my pelvic floor muscles would give out I laughed so hard and for so long. The sun set.

Next morning, in a fit of inspiration, I called Alphabet Soup, the toy store on the Commons, asked if they had any pogo sticks, fully assembled. They had one left.
“I’ll be there in 20 minutes,” I said. “Don’t sell it to anyone else!”

When I returned, box just out of sight, Jenn was tapping on her laptop, her phone tucked between her ear and shoulder, working remotely. While I waited for her to finish I took a minute and imagined the next 30 seconds. There are few things as satisfying as giving someone you love the right gift.

When she hung up, I told her I had a surprise for her.
“A present? For me? Mot – you know that’s totally unnecessary. My dogs have been pooping in your yard, I’ve been eating your food, drinking your coffee. . . ”

I put my hand up.
“Close your eyes,” I said. “This is actually totally necessary.”

I laid the box across her lap. She looked. Wrinkled her brows.
“Mot, no. For me? You did not just get me a pogo stick.”
“I totally just got you a pogo stick,” I said. “Because I love you. And now we can film a side-by-side-slow-motion-pogo-battle.”
We did, too.
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Originally from Manhattan, Mariah was educated in Massachusetts, Montana and Texas, often by failure. She lives with her husband and three children in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Mariah can be reached at mariah@mariahmottley.com.