There are no boundaries between them. She pushes him around the store in a stroller he’s two years too big for. He grabs everything he can reach and throws it to the floor and she exclaims theatrically as though he hadn’t unveiled the same delighted gesture the day before. She basks in the attention while brown-skinned people drop to their knees and attend to his mess.
She deputizes the floor cleaners into her circle of conversation as though they were a paying audience for her one-woman performance art show. There are no class distinctions acknowledged in Brentwood, just people with nametags who can be pressed into service as loyal family servants but to whom there are no reciprocal obligations.
The boy shrieks and reaches for new things to topple, for levers to yank, for containers to spill. He has worlds to conquer and a mother who needs drama.
“Look Nikolas, you’ve created an album cover.”
depressing
And normalized.