Middle Child

“Quiet down!” Deborah McPherson yelled as she came in her front door.
As the babysitter, I was surrounded by her three children in a state of interrupted chaos.
After leaving her clutching position on my legs Milly, Deborah’s middle child, scampered over to her mom and exclaimed energetically, “I’m normal!”
I tried not to laugh, especially when Deborah grimaced and said, “It’s time for you to clam down.”
I instantly stiffened up and tried to remember she didn’t mean me, she meant Milly.
Her two sons, one older than Milly in fourth grade and the other younger and in kindergarten, were quiet as rodents in comparison to Milly. The younger son whimpered and whined about losing a toy. The elder son, David, stood quietly, observing his mother’s entrance like not even a change of expression—except maybe slight relief.
Whenever Deborah reprimanded her children, I felt like their misbehavior was my fault. What was worse, I didn’t know what they did wrong. Milly was a bundle of energetic joy and I loved her oddities. David kept telling me I’d hate Milly if I had to live with her. While his point had validity, I’d have to say the same about living with me. My roommate dropped out of college and moved out in the middle of the semester without a word to me, if that explains anything. I still don’t know. Playing with Milly was fun because she was so crazy. I could be one hundred percent kid with her and we’d imitate weird voices like Disney’s Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. We also made weird faces at each other and told stories no one else thought made sense, and we couldn’t stop laughing. Milly and I were what Anne, from Anne of Green Gables, would call “kindred spirits.” That was a character I identified with in appearance. With so few red heads—1% of America—I had to identify with someone.
Milly and I both had freckles. I loved freckles. I loved tickling Milly too. She had a laugh that she could turn on and off even if something wasn’t funny. She made it funny, and so did I.
After Milly told her mom “I’m normal,” she came back to me. She squinted one eye, moved her lips to a strange vertical shape, raised her arm and bent her hand down to beat it against her chest twice, repeating, “I’m normal.” I remembered that as the retarded sign from elementary school. But I wasn’t sure how to correct her, because I didn’t want to put bad meaning into something she did innocently.
Constantly at the McPherson house I was reminded of those Bible verses where Jesus tells his disciples to be like little children. Also, whenever I tried to come up with a way to explain to them bad and good, and why they should care, I remembered what the Bible said about the Law existing so that we know how what actions are sins. Somehow Paul ended up explaining something about there would be no sin if there wasn’t the Law, but I still didn’t understand all of that. I didn’t want to impose this unstable Law on to these children either. It as hard to lay down Law like: “Don’t throw things at your younger brother” or “We should be quieter.” The children rarely asked why, and when they did I only knew “Because that’s what we’re supposed to do.” I was surprised Deborah still let me baby-sit her children, even when every time she came home Milly was loud and shouting around the house and I was there next to her.
“You need to calm down, Milly,” Deborah repeated. “It’s time for bed.”
Deborah always came back in time for her children to go to bed. Maybe she knew my incompetence in this area. I couldn’t see why she’d hire someone she couldn’t trust to calm down her children. She was paying for more of a jungle jim than a babysitter.
Milly ran to me and waved her skinny arms up at me. I picked her up and twirled her around in a hug.
“Thank you, Kandace,” Deborah said. “We’ll see you next week?”
Setting down Milly, I replied, “Of course.”
“Good!” Deborah smiled with her lips, but her eyes couldn’t hold the smile.
I could see I was implicitly being ushered out.
“Good-bye!” I told the two boys. I turned to Milly and shared a smile and a giggle, before picking up my backpack and walking towards the door.
“Mommy!” Milly shouted.
“Yes?” Deborah’s happiness sounded affected.
“Kandace can talk like Stitch too!” Milly said in a squeaky, indiscernible copy of the character she mentioned.
“Yes, I can!” I said in my practiced Stitch voice. Elementary school, junior high, and high school gave me lots of time to practice my eccentric ways. I was stuck now.
Milly’s uproar of laughter pleased me, but not her mother.
“Quiet, Mildred!” Deborah scolded.
I hung my head. Milly’s eyes were wide, unable to comprehend her mother’s distress.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s not your fault,” Deborah said. Her face showed no emotion to me. I knew I heard only what she believed as fact. “She does this without help.”
“Well, I wish I knew how to make them listen,” I said.
“It’s not your job,” Deborah said. She turned back to shushing Milly, while her other two sons went over to the toys and the television.
First she’d try to calm down Milly. Then hopefully the boys would be more compliant than their excitable sister.
“Bye!” Milly yelled at me, smiling.
“Bye, Milly,” I said. “Bye boys! Bye Deborah. Thank you.”
“Thanks, Kandace,” Deborah said.
I shut the door behind me and walked to my car.
I was more of a kid than Milly sometimes. However, I was a kid that could drive, baby-sit other kids, go to college, work at your local grocery store, and write checks. Why did Deborah trust me with her kids? I didn’t know. Why did my roommate leave in the middle of the semester? I didn’t know. Why did money disappear so fast? I didn’t know. I did know that someday, if I had kids, I’d have to know how to be a parent even though I’d rather be a kid. I wondered if Deborah struggled with that. Maybe that’s why she yelled so much? Maybe that’s why Milly laughed so much? Maybe she wanted to make her mother smile too—or maybe she was just a kid.