What Do I Think?

You know how you can tell the day is going to be bad?

The morning started with a friend calling to alert me about a 28-year-old woman who threw her two children, then herself, over a bridge not twenty minutes from my home. Incredibly, all three survived and were not hit by on-coming traffic on the highway below. What did I think, asked my well-meaning friend?

Well, friends, this kind of story is on my radar for obvious reasons. And this isn’t the first Texas mother in recent weeks, months, years to make headlines that get shuffled into my email box or on my voice mail with the accompanying, "Did you hear about this?" So, yeah, people are going to ask me about it because, in the words of my writing professor, "Parental relationships, especially mothers, are your territory, Karen. That’s your country. So don’t stop writing about it."

Check.

But this querying of my opinion, as if I am an quasi-expert or collector of mom tragedy, is an unexpected part of this writer’s education. Fair enough. All writers have their country. And when we buy a house in our country, I suppose it’s assumed we speak the language.

So, I wonder what writer whose work is a pot-boiler of politics and prostitution is being asked her thoughts on Eliot Spitzer today? You know you’re out there. Please step forward an answer the question: Why is Mrs. Spitzer looking at her husband with such restraint?

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Karen Harrington, author, JANEOLOGY, the story of one man's struggle to understand his wife's sudden snap.
www.karenharringtonbooks.com