On this Fenway swing, it was the mother of all misses

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, May 17, 2007

BY ELIZABETH RAU

Special to the Journal

My husband and two sons took me to a Red Sox game for Mother’s Day. Yeah, that game, the amazing comeback game over the Baltimore Orioles. It was only the second Sox game I’ve been to in my life, and I’m 48. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get to two more before I die.

My first game was a bust. It was cold (I wore my parka), I spent most of the time in line at a hot dog stand and the Sox lost. At the start of Sunday’s game I was full of hope: It was sunny and the Sox were on a roll.

We had fantastic seats — left field, second row grandstand, within spitball distance of the Green Monster. Manny was so close I could see him bite a nail on his left hand and then curl his fingers inside to inspect his work. I could see Varitek’s tidy goatee, Lugo’s spindly legs.

I was so excited to be there, in seats with a clear view, it really didn’t matter to me that the first 8 1/2 innings of the game were — let’s face it — duller than a bad soccer game. Hit (sometimes), throw to first, out. How many times can that happen before the mind starts to drift?

Bored but still charmed by the park, I kept myself busy people-watching: the red-head who tossed her Dice-K poster onto left field; the twenty-something man who concealed his beer in a Coke cup (Can anyone really drink six Cokes in one game?), and the father who tucked his infant son’s rotten banana peel under my seat, a violation of the park’s 6th code of conduct: Respect other fans.

My sons, Henry, 6, and Peder, 7, had a tougher time staying engaged. They made it through three ho-hum innings without a complaint, but by the top of the fourth they were asking for a tour of the Red Sox Team Store, known to most parents as the gift shop. That trip took 20 minutes, as well as $85 from our bank account to pay for a white Matsuzaka jersey and navy blue J.D. Drew T-shirt.

Back in their seats, my sons continued to fidget so we calmed them with Cracker Jacks, cotton candy and ice cream. Henry ate a $4 hot dog. The undulating arms of the wave that swept through the stands kept them intrigued for another 10 minutes or so but the silliness ceased when the Sox blew it, yet again.

“I want to go home, dad,” said Peder.

“I don’t like what I got,” said Henry. “Can we go back to the gift shop?”

The Sox were down, 4-0, in the bottom of the seventh when we stood up and said so long to seats 5, 6, 7 and 8 in sect 32, row 02, CVS Family Section: No Alcohol Permitted. I was dumping our trash (4th code of conduct: Help keep Fenway Park clean.), when my husband heard what he later recalled as “the crack of a bat.” He looked up at a TV monitor under the stands; the score was now 5-0 heading into the bottom of the eighth.

I remember thinking as we walked past the turnstiles that no one else seemed to be doing what we were doing: leaving. Lansdowne Street was eerily quiet, except for a few vendors selling shriveled Polish sausages.

On the way to the car, a young man riding by on his bike noticed my boys’ Sox caps ($44).

“How’d they do?” he shouted.

“They lost,” I said, and he frowned. I thought he might burst into tears.

For the heck of it, my husband turned on the radio just before we got on the Southeast Expressway to head back to Providence. The boys were asleep in the backseat. It was the bottom of the ninth. The play-by-play guy on the radio said something like, “the tying run is in the on-deck circle.” Then he said the “winning run” was there. Where? I couldn’t understand a thing.

“What’s happening?” I asked my husband, frantically.

“Just listen,” he snapped, and turned up the volume.

“Unbelieveable!” the radio guy yelled moments later when the Sox won, 6-5. “Bedlam at Fenway!”

But there were no “yippees” or “yahoos” in our car.

“We didn’t have to leave,” I said, through gritted teeth.

“You wanted to leave,” my husband said.

“No, you wanted to leave,” I said.

I pouted all the way home, like a schoolgirl who didn’t get the iPod she wanted for her birthday. I thought of all the things I wouldn’t be able to do: brag to my sister, a Sox fan who lives in D.C. and has to sit through Nationals’ games; have a once-in-a-lifetime experience; remind my boys in years to come that they were by my side when . . .

“I feel sick about this,” I said, poking my peas at dinner.

My husband on the other hand, seemed nonchalant, projecting a kind of it’s-only-a-game attitude, a strange stand for a lifelong Sox fan, especially one who still has the team’s official yearbooks from ’64 through ’67, all in pristine condition.

I see now that, deep down, he was hurting.

It must have been 1:30 in the morning when I found him standing in front of the TV, tuned to NESN, watching the ninth, the one we missed, the inning when the Orioles’ Chris Ray (bless his heart) drops the ball. My husband was in boxers and a T-shirt, and he was wearing headphones with a long wire hooked into the TV so only he could hear the call. He looked like Street Sense ready to burst through the gate, nose thrust forward, head bobbing with excitement. My 7-year-old was sitting next to him, in silence, on the ottoman.

“I’m tired, dad,” said Peder.

“Hold on,” my husband said. “This is the last play of the game. I just want to watch it.”

Elizabeth Rau is a former Journal staff writer.

Someone is missing: a mother's story
By Elizabeth Rau, Globe Correspondent | May 12, 2007

I scooted the kid-size stool next to my 7-year-old son and leaned in until our elbows touched. He pulled two wrinkled sheets of blue-lined paper from his folder and ironed out the creases with the palm of his hand. "Read it to me," I said. It was my first visit to his classroom as a volunteer writing coach, and I was eager to get started.

Peder's story was about our trip to Nantucket last summer. His ability to chronicle each leg of our journey (first the drive to Hyannis, then a ferry ride to the island), and his use of detail ("a kwik snak at the harbr"), were impressive. He mentioned hunting for shells on the beach with his 6-year-old brother, Henry, and he recalled how their dad cooked dinner one night. Finally, he crafted a solid ending sentence: "I Love Nantocit!"

But something was missing: me.

I didn't think much of it until my next visit when he showed me a story about our train trip --his first -- to Boston. "We were going on a trane," he wrote. "I nuw it would be fun." The next sentence stopped me cold: "My mom yeld it's time to go." Yelled? I was tempted to cross out the word and write, in my best kid-script, the gentler "said."

As a writing coach my job was to encourage Peder to get his thoughts down on paper in a coherent way, without worrying too much about spelling and grammar. I suppose word choice fell into that category, too. I didn't touch a thing.

The following week he showed me a story called "My Famliey." Surely, I thought, my star would shine this time. "My frst membr of my famliey," he wrote, "is Me." Me wrote that he liked football, computers, and cooking. Henry got second billing. Henry, he wrote, liked Batman and jumping. Dad was next. Dad liked sports. Dad liked eating. Dad liked cooking, too. I flipped over the paper. Blank.

"Missing someone?" I said, peering over my reading glasses.

"Oh," said Peder.

He drew an asterisk between "Batman" and "My Dad" and wrote, on a new sheet of paper: "My thrd membr is my mom. . ."

As the weeks passed, and Peder's stories progressed into novellas, my self-esteem plummeted. I was turning into an insecure mom wedded to what my 7-year-old thought of me at every moment. In a story about making a school project, Peder praised his dad ("He helped me with the hamering") but left me out. In a story about a family excursion to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park I received one mention: "Mom was gon most of the time geting food."

"Cracked me up," said a friend who read the story.

I smiled half heartedly and tried to explain my absence. The lines at the hot dog stand were long, and I got lost on the way back to our seats. Everyone, I said, gets lost at least once in their lives at Fenway.

One rainy day, as my sons sat cross-legged on the floor playing with Legos , I took a deep breath and blurted out the question I had been thinking about for days: "Do you like hanging around with your father more than me?"

"Yes," they responded, in unison and with a casualness I found somewhat alarming.

"Why?" I said, visibly perplexed.

"Because Dad is funner -- and bakes," Peder said.

My husband is the cook of the house, and for that I am grateful. But he has never baked in his life.

"You mean cook," I said.

"No," Henry said. "He baked cookies."

Over the winter, my husband cut up a slab of cookie dough and popped the remains in the oven, but I would hardly call that baking. Actually, it was the "funner" remark that worried me more.

I agonized: Was I really second choice, the Saturday night backup?

Friends told me that it's normal for children, at varying stages in their development, to prefer one parent over another. In my case, they said, the reason was obvious: They like more the parent who is around less. I'm at home all day with my children; my husband works full-time outside the house. Under that arrangement, most of the day-to-day parenting falls on my shoulders. I'm Bossy Betty. Brush your teeth. Comb your hair. Turn off the TV. When my husband comes home after work, he's the host of an all-night party -- hoops in the backyard after dinner, German chocolate cake for dessert at 9, the Red Sox until 10.

Still, the boys' bias bothered me and -- gulp! -- hurt my feelings. How could I woo them back? Maybe I needed to lighten up. I handed the boys the TV's remote. I let their nails grow. I lost the comb. I even bought a new pair of sneakers for the playground. I lasted two weeks. Matted hair was cute at first, then too-cute. I looked down at 10 days of nail growth and cringed. I fled to the front stoop to escape yet another episode of "Cyberchase. " On the playground, I tossed the football around a few times, but all I could think about was retreating to a bench to read my morning newspaper.

I went back to my old ways. I have my style; my husband has his. Maybe my kids will thank me someday for bringing some structure to their lives, for insisting that they do things that aren't "fun." Maybe they'll thank me for reading to them, teaching them about writing, helping them with homework -- and, yes, for nagging them about brushing their teeth. Maybe they'll thank me for unplugging the TV.

We all want our children to love us as much as we love them. My love for my boys is so powerful that -- I'll admit -- I can't bear to be away from them for long. When they climb into the car after school I can't wait to see them, to pat their backs, squeeze their hands or, if they let me, tousle their hair. My best friend would be appalled to know the real reason I turned down a weekend trip to New York to visit her and other college friends: I didn't want to leave my children.

To borrow from an Ed Ames song, my cup runneth over with love for my boys. When Peder left me out of his stories -- or gave me a passing glance -- I got lost in a maze of doubt: They love me; they love me not. Of course, deep down, I know my boys love me. They show their love for me in so many ways every day, with their hugs and kisses and hand-holding and flying leaps from the bed into my arms. "Don't drop me, mom!" they say. (I never have.) But I'm just as vulnerable as the next guy when it comes to love, even -- or perhaps especially -- when it involves a 7-year-old.

Fortunately, by my next visit to Peder I had emerged from my self-pitying period. I vowed to accept, with grace, any misrepresentations of my character.

This time, Peder showed me a story he was working on called "My Hermit Crabs." He wrote about Orange Juice -- the big, light-colored one that slept in a plastic palm tree -- and Tiger -- the smaller, dark-colored one that burrowed deep into the sand and rarely moved. They had two ponds, one for leisure, one for bathing. They ate hermit crab food. They needed lots of attention.

"Then they died," he wrote.

The story was unfinished. My son needed an ending. I knew it; he knew it. Here was my chance to go down nicely. After all, this was serious stuff, a collection of work destined for the keepsake box.

I reminded Peder that I buried Orange Juice and Tiger by the tulips in the backyard. I reminded him again. He gave me a long, reflective look. I felt sure my compassion would be noted in "My Hermit Crabs."

He put pencil to paper and wrote: "I hope you learned sumthing from my story."

I did.