In the Oakland Museum

Saxon 33 Sonia Saxon In the Oakland Museum In the Oakland Museum, my son is about to say something. I think he will say that I failed as a mother, as a wife. I will protest. Then he will say that I'm never a perfect person. I hold my breath before he speaks, before I can look at the paintings. It is the last Sunday in December. It is raining. My son is visiting from the East. Everything western is interesting, flowers in December, the hills and the Bay, even Oakland Chinatown, the street names in Chinese, the fish shops, the chicken shops. Today, in the Oakland Museum, a Chinese family walks in, mother, father, several children. They look at the photos of Old Chinatown before the Earthquake, before the women came from China. They smile, as my children, still small, smile at me in a dream, a dream where their father, my dead ex-husband has his arm on my shoulder. In this dream, he still loves me. The poison, hatred of women, has not yet entered his soul. In the Oakland Museum, my son doesn't say he hates me, but I can feel it. He blames me for his father's death. As if / could stop that drowning on the other coast. As if one mother could stop hatred of women, hatred of mothers. ...