Mothers, who are you when you are not mothers?

PalmaI am stretched out, on the beach, half reading, half looking around me, catching other stories in passing. A mother emerges from among the beach umbrellas, almost crawling on the sand, struggling to reach the front line, laden with everything. She is accompanied by her twins. It's not entirely clear who is dragging whom. But she lies down, defeated, on the towel, which she hasn't even bothered to straighten when she took it out of the bag. She hasn't taken off her clothes either. And I can see her bikini through her white, Ibizan-style blouse. She's also wearing some denim shorts that she has no intention of taking off. And some black XXL sunglasses, where the expression I'd like to decipher is hidden. The twins don't move much from her side. They lie around her, adoring her, like in a Sorolla painting. They touch her hair, resting their little heads on different parts of their mother's body, also looking at the sea, in silence. After a period of rest, the two girls start to stir and liven up. They put on their swimsuits and go for a swim. The mother shows no sign of movement, let alone concern. The fact that she doesn't feel any unease seeing her six or seven-year-old daughters go to the sea alone makes me think she has already saved them from something much more dangerous. Whatever it is, it has devastated her. I feel like I am witnessing the conclusion of a crusade, as if this moment were the last chapter of a long story, the scene just before the final credits.

II. It is a weekday winter day. It's getting late and we're on our way home, around midnight. There's no one on the street, except for a woman, with a stroller, two children, and another man. You can tell they lost the ability to modulate their tone of voice a while ago. Both are holding a plastic cup in their hands. They must have been kicked out, on the last round, from one of the bars that populate the ground floors of this neighborhood built by foreigners decades ago, one of the last where it's still affordable to get drunk on a Tuesday night with mojitos. The woman pushes the stroller with the same hand she holds the wide cup –still full of ice, lime, and mint leaves– and with the other she signals a taxi. The car stops and, all of a sudden, one of her children opens the door, climbs into the seats, and puts their shoes on the upholstery. The mother doesn't even notice, and insists to her companion that no, he should take it, the taxi. He flatly refuses – "Come on, you're the one with the kids," he says – and starts walking up the street, waving goodbye and blowing kisses with his hand. "He's my friend and he's depressed," she reasons, losing the few points she had left to get into the taxi, which is already threatening to pick up someone else. What the driver doesn't see is the intention of his body, to run away; and his gaze, held hostage by the doubt of not having done everything possible.

III. As every day, I arrive just in time to catch the bus. I'm always late for everything. But another girl arrives even later, rushing. She stops next to me and I can see how droplets of sweat begin to break through her foundation, too dark for her skin tone and contrasting with the fuchsia pink of her lips. She's lucky that, as every day, the bus is late. So she lights a cigarette. She smokes anxiously, angrily, sucking the nicotine with very tight lips, agitated. Inside the bus, I sit a few seats behind her, diagonally. She takes out her phone and when the screen lights up, I see the photo of a child no older than three years old. She's one of those who said she wanted to be a young mother. She's an indeterminate age around 30. I can't tell if she's older or younger than me, because her behavior sends me contradictory signals. I imagine her being late for the bus because she had to drop the child off at school and now she's eager to get to work, with which she supports the family. But when she's in front of me, she can't stop stroking her hair while watching a Netflix series on her phone: she combs her hair with her hands and places her hair over her chest while observing the split ends; she pulls a strand, lets it fall in front of her forehead and then immediately tucks it behind her ear again. She flirts with herself, innocently; she's a mess only when she's all alone.

I'm fascinated by your secret lives, mothers. I see you and I look at you, from the other side, from complicity and respect. I try to unravel the mystery of motherhood and the life that unfolds at the margins, when you stop behaving as you're supposed to, when who you are emerges from the depths to the surface, without pretense. I observe you, but not to exalt you, nor to admire you. To erect you as heroines has been one of the worst disservices that could have been done to you. Taking your divinity for granted has meant denying you mortality, another tool to dehumanize you. And I'm not going to leave you here, crucified, on this pedestal.