The question usually arises after the electricity goes out. Innocent, unplanned, impossible.
It was the night of my 39th birthday. I was lying next to my 4-year-old son in the dark, watching him fall asleep. I know he’s getting closer when he turns away from me and rests his right cheek on the pillow and his body finally slows down.
Now that I’m 39, I’ve started thinking about all the things that went wrong last year. I looked back and took stock of all the things I had failed at. I’ve messed things up in every way possible. What I didn’t do. What I didn’t know yet. Something I thought would pass by now. The choices I made led me here instead.
The year behind me felt wasted. You left so many questions unanswered.
He was silent for a while. So long that I thought he might be asleep. But he wasn’t.
“Mama,” he said. “When can we see the rainbow?”
“They don’t come out at night, honey. Next time it rains, I’ll have to look for them.”
“But I want to see it now.”
I wish I could have given him what he wanted. Instead I said, “Maybe you can dream about them and we can see the morning.”
he started crying. “I don’t want to see you in the morning.”
Then, with tears in his eyes, he said: “Mom, why are we the only ones living here?”
“What?” I said.
“Why don’t others live with us?”
“Who do you want to live with?”
“Dad,” he said. “I want my father to live with us. Why can’t he live with us?”
I felt sick, like everything inside me had been ripped out, like I couldn’t remember how to breathe. I didn’t speak right away…not just to keep from crying, but to buy time.
I could feel him waiting next to me as answers swirled around in my head, each wrong in a different way. excessively. Too little. Too honest. Too empty. I was afraid of saying the wrong thing and letting it stick in his mind. I’m scared to hold it without saying anything that Please stay with him.
Finally, I spoke. “Let’s talk about that tomorrow,” I said. Then, “I promise, okay?”
He turned on his side and became quiet, confident that he would hear back from me in the morning.
Afterwards, I lay there furious at myself. And this is what I thought. There’s no answer I can give, no version of this conversation that won’t hurt him. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not until I have more time to think, read, and practice the right words. No matter what I say, that’s not what he wants.
So what scared me wasn’t that I didn’t have the right answer at the time, it was that I realized there might not be a right answer. I realized that this was not a one-time conversation, but a question that, like him, would evolve and come back in different forms over and over again. And that no matter what I do, I will always be the one to disappoint him.
When I finally left the room, I texted his father.
A rough night. I’m really emotional right now so it might be best to talk tomorrow, but this was about 45 minutes before bedtime.
I sent him a conversation between me and my son. I wasn’t ready for that tonight.
He replied: sorry. I’m sure this move will be confusing for him.
They had just gone from the house we lived together to his grandmother’s house and back.
The next day I texted him again. Can we talk more about what Joey asked sometime?
he didn’t reply.
The next day he emailed me about our schedule. That’s when I realized I had broken my promise.
The morning after my birthday, Joey seemed to have forgotten. He had chocolate milk. He got ready to go to school. He did not mention the rainbow or who lives with us and why. But I hadn’t forgotten.
His question stuck with me. I replayed the conversation in my head. Then I answered honestly, alone.
Why can’t your father live with us? Because being in the same house was destroying me.
Because we can’t bring out the best in each other. Because he never made me feel loved and I couldn’t live like that.
But none of those answers belonged to a 4-year-old. What he needed was something else. So I searched for kinder, kinder words. I read about how to whittle the truth down until it fits into words that don’t scare him.
Because sometimes adults find it difficult to live together, even if they still care about each other.
Because we love you so much that we thought we could take better care of you if we lived in two homes.
This is how mom and dad can be the best parents for you.
I have the answer now. Ready and locked up for the next time he asks. Something that I was confident would work for me. I hope I don’t make him feel bad. But so far he hasn’t asked again.
So every night I curl up around him and wait for his breathing to change, his body to soften, and for him to fall asleep before asking questions. And until he does, I lie next to him and brace for impact. I’m afraid that the next time he asks, I’ll end up giving words that I still don’t believe, explanations that make him expect something different. It’s like a rainbow in the darkness.
Sarah Michelle Sherman Writer based in Albany, New York. Her work has appeared in Huffington Post, Today, Parents, and other outlets. She is currently working on a collection of personal essays that explore depression, motherhood, the end of her marriage, and her search for identity through it all. Through raw and honest storytelling, she aims to challenge mental health stigma and spark deeper conversations about parenting, relationships, and the complexities of being human.
