The day I decided to change my life, I was wearing sweatpants and an old oxford of Peter's with a coffee stain down the front. I hadn't showered because the whole family had slept in one motel room the night before, and it was all we could do to get back on the road without someone dropping the remote in the toilet or pooping on the floor. We had just driven across the country to start Peter's new job. Houston, Texas, to Cambridge, Massachusetts. I'd had the kids in our tenyear- old Subaru the whole drive, two car seats and a booster across the back. Alexander kept taking Toby's string cheese, and the baby, except when he was sleeping, was fussing. Peter drove the U-Haul on the theory that if it broke, he 'd know how to fix it. On the road, I was sure I had the short end of the stick, especially during the dog hours of Tennessee. But now Peter was hauling all our belongings up three flights of narrow stairs, and I was at the park, on a blanket in the late-afternoon shade, breast-feeding Baby Sam. Peter had to be hurting. Even with our new landlord helping him, it was taking all day. And I was just waiting for him to call on the cell phone when he was ready for us to come home. Or as close to home as a curtainless apartment stacked high with boxes could be. We 'd been at the park since midmorning, and we were running low on snacks. Alexander and Toby were galloping at top speed, as they always did. I'm not even sure they realized they were in a new park. They acted like we might as well have been at home, in Houston, the only place they'd ever lived. They acted like the last five days of driving hadn't even registered. I, in contrast, was aching with loss. I didn't like this park. Too clean, too brand-new, too perfect. The parks at home had character--monkey bars fashioned like cowboys, gnarled crape myrtle trunks for climbing, discarded Big Wheels with no seats. And we'd known them backward and forward--every tree knot, every mud hole, every kid. This park, today, felt forced. It was trying too hard. I surveyed the moms. Not one of them, I decided, was a person I wanted to meet. And just as I was disliking them all and even starting to pity them for having no idea what they were missing, park-wise, Toby-- my middle boy, my sandy-haired, blue-eyed, two-year-old flirt--watched a younger kid make a move for the truck in his hand, and then, unbelievably, grabbed that kid's forearm and bit it. The little boy screamed as Toby pulled the truck to his chest. "My truck!" Toby shouted. (He always pronounced "truck" like "fuck," but that was, perhaps, another issue.) And then, of course, all hell broke loose. I jumped up, startling the baby out of a nap and off my boob. I ran across the park, wailing baby on my shoulder, shirt unbuttoned, shouting, "Toby! No!" Toby saw my horrified face and instantly started to cry himself--though he was no match for the little kid he 'd bitten, who was now screaming like he was on fire. His mother, too, had sprinted from her perch, dropping her purse on the way, and was now holding him as if he'd been shot. "Is it bleeding?" she kept asking the boy. "Is it bleeding?" It was clearly not bleeding. Isn't that the number one rule of parenting? Don't Make Things Worse? All the other parents, meanwhile, had gathered around us to see what the heck was going on. My shirt was hanging open, the baby was still shrieking, and I remembered from one of those parenting books I used to read--back when I used to do that type of thing--that when a child bites, the parent of the biter must give attention to the bitee. I turned toward the Excerpted from Everyone Is Beautiful: A Novel by Katherine Center All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
