Chapter One

WE WUZ ROBBED
Caroline Leavitt


It's Christmastime. A shiny bright apple of a day in San Francisco and the three of us-me, my husband, Jeff, and our one-year-old son, Max-are at a concert. Max's in red corduroy overalls and a striped shirt, his hair long and golden as the day ahead of us. The concert's been going on for an hour already and the whole time Max has been contentedly sitting on his father's lap, so enthralled by the music, he seems hypnotized. Already, a woman has come over to compliment us on our well-behaved baby. "What a love!" she coos, chucking Max under the chin. Someone else crouches and snaps his picture. And then Jeff quietly looks at me and says "I have to pee."

We both know what that means. He quietly lifts Max up and sets him on my lap, and startled, Max looks wildly around. Jeff hastens to the bathroom, and almost as if on cue, Max begins to scream.

He wails when I try to rock him. He tries to peel himself off my body when I croon. And when I stand, trying to gently dance with him, he flails his hands. "Is he okay?" the person next to us asks with great concern, and I nod. "Colic," I lie, my mouth quivering. "A little stomach bug." I try to walk with Max, just to get away from all the concerned stares, and then suddenly there's Jeff, who takes Max again, and all the crying stops. We all sit back down, and even if no one is looking at us, I feel as though they are, and I feel as if I've failed, as if I'm some terrible monster of a mother that my own son screams when I try to hold him.

I halfheartedly hand Max a pacifier and he swats it out of my hand. "Fine," I snap. &q