hat/e

The three-year-old child looks at a tall thin woman wearing a blue suit and matching pill box hat who has been put in charge of her for the duration of the 17-hour flight from San Francisco to Melbourne. The child thinks the woman’s hat is the most perfect thing she has ever seen.

The child sits alone in her seat, buckled up, and does “just fine” on the flight. She has been put on the plane by her mother. She will be greeted at the other end by her father. This is the way it has been decided it will go. A year with each. The child is with one parent long enough to not be happy when it is time to see the other parent.

Years later, about 45 to be exact, the mother is asked by that same child if there is anything she regrets about her life. The mother says plainly, looking down into her hands, “After you explained to me about attachment and bonding, and how important that is, I realize now that I made a mistake sending you to your father at such a young age. I regret that. But the truth is, I just didn’t know. He said it was what we should do, so I did it.”

Another time, on a plane before takeoff, the child sits next to her father as he refuses to put on his seat belt and argues loudly with a lady in a blue suit and matching pill box hat. What a stupid ugly hat, the child thinks. I hate that hat.