Getting Away

“Mama, can we go see Baby Bao?”

I know. I promised that we would go to the Zoo. But it was one of those half-hearted promises that parents sometimes make when their sweet child becomes suddenly enamored with a baby river otter they saw on the news one night. It was not something that I thought we would actually spend money and travel across the state of Washington to do.

“Please, Mama. He’s so cute.”

I look out the kitchen window at the smoke filling the air outside. It’s thick and gray, the sun is an angry orange lesion in the sky. Breathing feels like standing too close to a campfire. Maybe a weekend in the cleaner, cooler air of the Puget Sound wouldn’t be so bad.

I put my toddler down for the night with only three stories, extra snuggles, and a minor disagreement over which flavor of toothpaste she wants to use — it’s Dragon Dazzle — and open my laptop to plan the trip that is just 72-hours away.

How the hell do plane tickets cost this much? I have owned cars that didn’t cost this much.

Could we drive? Eight hours in the car. On I-5. With a toddler. With no easy access to bathrooms for most of the drive. The sounds of Frozen playing on repeat from the backseat. With gas at $5.15 a gallon in Washington?

No. We cannot drive.

I total up the cost. It’s a whole paycheck, more actually, for hotel, car, food and flights. It’s fine. We’ll make memories. It will be worth it.

***

My God, that’s a big boat.

We wake up to the sight of an oil tanker outside our hotel room window, so close I could probably hit it with a rock from here. I knew tankers were big, but whoa. Sloane is sitting next to me on the floor, a towel spread underneath us, glazed Top Pot donut in hand, apple juice at the ready, equally mesmerized by this enormous ship.

We have to be at the Zoo at 7:20AM for the pre-opening tour I booked. I pray her little feet can make the walk. I did not bring a stroller. Maybe I’m foolish. I chew a Xanax and drink from Colombe coffee the Uber Eats driver brought me. She is chewing absent-mindedly staring at the tanker as I pull on her shoes.

Wait, are these on the wrong feet?

Oh, are you fucking serious?!

I packed two left sandals.

She owns a school pair and a pool pair of tie-dye sandals, and somehow I grabbed both left shoes. I snatch the Rothy’s clogs from the bench by the door and put them on her feet. They’re filthy from our beach outing the night before, but they’re all we have.

Kids get dirty. No one will judge you.

That’s the problem with being a mother. There’s always someone who will judge you. Maybe a woman who thinks she could or did do a better job. Maybe a man who thinks this is your only job and isn’t sure why you can’t do it perfectly. He probably doesn’t even know his kids’ allergies or birthdays, but he is a father so he gets to fail resplendent in judgment where you cannot even succeed in silence.

Abra, they’re just shoes. You need to go.

It’s 6:55 AM. I text the valet and ask for the car, as I apply mascara and a pop of electric pink blush so I can look like a person. I say a silent thank you to five days ago Abra who made the snap decision to cut off nine inches of our hair. This trip has literally been made possible by my new Italian Bob. It’s doing the Lord’s work.

“Ooh, Blue Blue, you look so pretty.”

I glance out the bathroom door at Sloane. She has wrapped my new necklace around the neck of her stuffed Bernese Mountain Dog. She knotted the chain. Last week, she told her preschool teacher that she was a “knot expert.” She has the unbridled confidence of a mediocre white man. May she never lose it. She will be so dangerous if she can hold onto it.

I examine the twisted chain.

Blast. Who needs jewelry? Not me.

I tell Blue Blue she looks beautiful and tell Sloane to head for the door in a voice that is compensating by being a bit too chipper. She stops at the full length mirror in the hallway and says “Look at these cool girls. We’re such cool girls, Mama.”

May she never change her opinion of me. No one else has ever thought I was cool.

There is a man standing in front of the elevator bank looking at his phone like he’s reading an EKG report. I can see from here he’s looking at Kalshi. Men are obsessed with Kalshi. All the coming divorces thanks to “prediction markets” and sports gambling should keep my family law colleagues in business for years.

I notice that he hasn’t pushed the down button. I tell Sloane she should push it. He barely looks up to correct me, and says, in a tone that suggests I’m clearly a moron, “No, I pushed it.” He looks down at Sloane’s shoes and then winks at me. He’s barely 30 with a gambling problem, and can’t even work an elevator, but he has thoughts.

I am in no mood for this shit today.

I heard on a podcast some months ago from Jane Marie that she shuts down haters and trolls by adopting “optimistic naïveté” in her responses, essentially pretending that she doesn’t understand they’re being condescending assholes and treating their comments as genuine. 44 years on this planet, and no one has ever given me a more valuable piece of advice for dealing with the free range rude. I should send her a fruit basket.

“Oh, it’s not lit up blue.” I say in a voice that sounds genuinely puzzled, twinkling with concern. “Maybe the light’s broken. Sloane, push it again, let’s see.”

The button erupts in a cobalt glow. I silence my face before it betrays my thoughts.

Dipshit stares at the now blue button for a moment, then at Sloane, then at me. “Guess, it’s touchy.” He looks at her shoes again. The doors open at exactly the right moment and I shuffle Sloane into the elevator, saying nothing in reply. After all, what am I supposed to say? “No, the button is obviously fine, a paragon of modern engineering, and you were clearly too mesmerized by the money you’re losing on Kalshi to realize that you failed to do literally the only task needed to summon the elevator?”

27-year-old me would have said it. Sometimes I miss that bitch. She had her uses.

Sloane hits the button for the lobby without instruction. See? So easy a child can do it. May the halo of the elevator buttons and this rage light my way.

***

Balzak the Walrus pops up from the water right in front of Sloane’s face and lets out what can only described as a whistle. It’s so loud and unexpected. Sloane bursts out laughing and looks at me with so much joy that the cost of this trip is suddenly Mom-Mathed to zero dollars. The walrus seems to know the laugh is for him and splashes her with water. She erupts in a full body cackle.

Yep, this trip was free.

Sloane has been wonderful all morning. Three hours, 12,000 steps, a pack of fruit snacks, and one ride on the carousel and she has not even dropped a corner of that smile since we arrived.

My hips are killing me, I’m regretting not wearing my Merrell’s and even the greatest hairspray on Earth could not keep my bangs curled in the face of the sea mist engulfing Point Defiance. But I will fight the urge to leave because watching her enjoy the Zoo is as close to bliss as I have ever felt even if I won’t be able to walk tomorrow.

She’ll be talking about the octopus and the otters for ages. Don’t even get her started on the sharks. Amazingly sharks will not be the focal point of the adult fear spectrum that she thinks they will be at four. I have not once considered the Bermuda Triangle in my adult life. My Dad is amazed that quicksand has not played a role in his. But this kid will be obsessed by the “spooky sharks” and their sharp teeth for at least a bit longer before she realizes they’re more novel than cartoons have led her to believe.

“Is she always this well behaved?” The tour guide wants to know.

He is tall, calm-spoken and kind, a former paleontologist who asks Sloane — the only child on the ten person tour — questions about the animals, and is continually astonished when she knows every answer. I am also astonished, especially given that I’ve won money on multiple game shows and didn’t know that animal poop is called scat. Sloane did though, so maybe I should start training her to answer in the form of a question?

“Not always, but she loves animals. So maybe we will just move to the Zoo.” He is kind enough to laugh at my attempt at humor.

“Well, she’s been a joy to have on the tour.” Yes, yes she has been. God, I’m the luckiest woman alive that this is my child. May I be worthy of her. May she remember this trip. I won’t forget it. (I will talk about it incessantly for weeks and convince nearly everyone I know that Point Defiance is the ultimate kids’ trip.)

The tour guide tells us that Balzak was born at the Montreal Zoo. I love Montreal. Maybe Sloane and I will go there next.

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