thankful

About a month ago I got a text message from my cousin telling me that there was an Amber Alert out in South Philly. That a little girl from the Mt. Caramel parish was snatched into a silver pickup truck while she was walking home from school.


I didn't sleep that night.

Not because I'm worried that Jake will be nabbed by someone. Yet. He doesn't leave my side and I don't turn my back. I can't even do that pretend-to-walk-away thing that I try every once in awhile when he doesn't feel like walking and I don't feel like picking him up. I take two steps and absolutely must turn around to make sure he didn't take a step toward the street instead of taking a step toward me. Jake knows this, and I usually find him sitting crosslegged on the ground with his head in his fists, waiting for me to give in and pick him up.
I'll start worrying about someone picking him up in about five years, when I struggle with myself whether to let the kid have a bit of independence or tie him to a kitchen chair. I'm guessing the independence thing will win out, as I am already sick of running to the corner for a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread or a can of corn or the need du jour. And if I let Jake go three blocks to pick up the pizza every Thursday, I'll save $4 a week. Not because I'm such a wonderful tipper, but because I'm embarrassed that I'm not picking the pie up myself because I'm too lazy to put pants that button on once I've taken them off and I'm humiliated that the nice delivery boy has to give up a "real" delivery run in his nice warm car to walk my dinner over to my fat ass. It isn't worth giving up your parking spot to drive between the shop to my front door so I just toss a twenty at the kid and thank him and pretend to limp as I walk in the house.

I'm such goofball.

The night that I thought there was a little girl missing somewhere nearby I let Jake sleep in my bed. I held him tight and he held me back. I listened to him breathe and I counted his fingers. I tried not to picture him in a strange house, with a strange man, on a dirty carpet near a stained mattress, next to an old bedside table that held a ratty bible and a roll of duct tape, and the only light in the room coming from a scuzzy fishtank. The sound of the tank was just a bit louder than the sound of his wimpers.

I used to work with sex offenders, in their homes. Someone's gotta do it, because no one is keeping these sick fucks locked up where they belong. I swear they all had old bibles in every room and dirty fishtanks and an obnoxious amount of duct tape holding things together in their house.

I still don't like duct tape or fishtanks, and it's been more than a decade since I knowingly sat down at a rapist's kitchen table. I associate visible, out-in-the-open bibles with sex crimes. Like it is a pisspoor sign of redemption and rehabilitation.

I thought about that little girl's mother, just blocks away from my house. Maybe just a few doors down from me. I didn't want to think about how close she might be.
I wanted to stay awake because she was awake. I felt like I owed it to her. I felt like I owed it to her because she was screaming to God and asking why it was her child and not someone else's and I'm someone else and it wasn't Jake who never came home for dinner that night. I was thanking God that I am someone else and my child was lying right beside me, giggling in his deep and peaceful sleep.

Sirens raged through the night. But sirens rage every night. The ladder house is right up the street and there are two police districts right over there behind the grocery store. One siren brought hope that everything was alright. More than one siren brought the fear that they needed an entire team to take care of the situation. Sirens that stopped within earshot meant that the monster who stole that little girl lived too close to me.

There is a registered sex offender a block and a half away. Blame him. Get him. Kill him.

I have taught Jake about Good Touch Bad Touch. My job has me working very closely with Women Organized Against Rape and I spoke to a couple of the counselors there about how and when to do it (now and gently, no matter how old your child is). They gave me a really good storybook that worked well. I thought it was corny, but Jake really connected with it. He was afraid at first, this is normal and I was warned he would be. He talked about his penis (what else is new, right?) and how he didn't want anyone to touch it, but then explained to me that some people have to in order to take care of him. He knows who is allowed and why and when and seems to understand this.
I have seen him be more assertive with adults he is uncomfortable near. He isn't so polite and people pleasing anymore, and while that may make me look like a bad mom and him look like an unruly child (read: bastardy arsehole), I am proud of him. He respects adults but doesn't have a problem shouting "STOP" when he doesn't want to be touched. Even babies have a right to personal space and privacy.

So, well it turns out that Amber Alert was a prank, and it had spread all over the country. I checked Snopes the next day when they didn't mention it on the news and I couldn't find anything online. I was angry someone did that, but not so much because it gave me a restless night full of loving my little boy and appreciating his safety and closeness and counting every single hair on his head.