Average Waves in Unprotected Waters

Although she fits readily into the era of the 1970s, Bet also represents the archetypal single mother. Because of her son’s disability, she exerts most of her energy caring for him, which leaves her enervated and rumpled. She is dressed in her Sunday best for the journey to the hospital, but even her best attire is “a worn beige knit” that “[hangs] from her shoulders like a sack” (32). She momentarily thinks that she should alter it but immediately dismisses the thought, as she feels “too slight and frail, too wispy for all she [has] to do” (32). This physical description is a metaphor for her emotional state; after nine years of bearing sole responsibility for a child with a disability, her spirit has blanched, her mental endurance has weakened, and she has no time or energy to take care of herself.

Throughout the story, Bet waffles between internal strength and insecurity, between motherly instinct and lack thereof. At times, she demonstrates that she knows her son well and can protect him from cruel society or stimuli that might upset him. At others, she cannot predict how he will react to a given situation, like when they arrive at the hospital and she thinks he might like the sound of the secretaries typing, but he gets lost in the lights instead.