Jurassic Car

He remembered trying to show mommy his new dinosaur toy. It was new. He’d just gotten it from one of Daddy’s lady friends. Another eager to make him happy because Daddy likes them more when they can make him happy.

It was big and green and if he pressed the button on the back it roared. The first time he did it, it scared him. But in the good way. He tried to tell all of this to Mommy, but she was busy, on the phone with Daddy, while trying to get his younger brother to sit still in his car seat so she could make all the buttons click. His brother wasn’t listening to Mommy, the same way Mommy wasn’t listening to him.

Sometimes Mommy couldn’t hear him when she was doing other things. It wasn’t the same kind of not hearing as when she had her ears covered, it was more like he wasn’t making any noise at all. There were other things that were making noise, like the things in the kitchen, or her cell phone, or his brother, or talking really loud with Daddy, and Mommy had to hear those things first before she could hear him. So, he waited.

Once Mommy stopped not-yelling yelling at the phone, his little brother’s seat had made all the clicks, the car was moving, and Mommy had made that huff that meant she could hear again, he tried once more.

“Mommy!” He knew the tightening of her shoulders meant a lot of things he didn’t understand, but he also knew it meant she’d heard him. “Look at my new dinosaur!”

His Mommy’s eyes were in the tiny mirror looking at him in that way that made him feel like they weren’t really her eyes at all.

“Where’d you get a new dinosaur, baby?”

“Daddy’s friend.” He pressed the button again to make the dinosaur roar and looked back at his Mommy’s eyes in the mirror, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. He could tell that she wasn’t listening anymore.

Mommy must not have liked the dinosaur’s roar.