It was a rare occurrence when I stayed home sick as a child. For one thing, I was a pretty healthy kid. For another, my mom, like most, was very good at detecting any kind of fakery when it came to such things.

Whenever I would emerge from my bedroom in the morning with a stage cough and sniffles, moaning, “Mom, I don’t feel so good,” she immediately implemented her tried-and-true countermeasures.

“Why don’t you go wash up, sweetie, and we’ll see if you feel better,” she would say in a sympathetic tone.

Then, “Why don’t you eat some breakfast and I bet you’ll feel better.”

And finally, “Why don’t you get dressed, honey, and we’ll see how you feel.”

The next thing I knew I was deep into a round of chasemaster on the Koko Head playground while waiting for the bell to ring.

ONE SUNNY day, I must have been sick for real because my mom kept me home from school. Around midday, after packing a small cooler and a folding backrest, she drove the two of us to Sandy Beach for some sun and fresh air. I wasn’t allowed in the water so I ambled up and down the nearly deserted beach, poking around in the sand. My mom, meanwhile, settled in with a paperback novel and a cold drink.

Not wanting to mess up a good thing, I didn’t ask her about it at the time, but at some point it began to dawn on me that she must have done this kind of thing before, only without me.

It was then I realized my mother had a secret life — a life that rolled on when I wasn’t around.

Like most kids, it was “out of sight, out of mind” when it came to my parents. That they might have an interior existence and their own needs was inconceivable.

I hadn’t given much thought to what she might be doing while I was at school, although there was ample evidence of her activities when I barged through the kitchen door after walking home in the afternoon: the piles of neatly folded laundry on the dining table, the evening meal simmering on the stove, and the glass of milk and peanut butter-and-apple sandwich — sometimes even fresh-baked cookies — awaiting my arrival.

Moms then, now and forever need “me time.” It’s a scarce commodity for any mother until the kids are grown and out of the house. We grab it where we can find it: a pedicure, lunch with a friend, window shopping at the mall.

And if the stars align and the kids are at a birthday party or some other activity that doesn’t require our attendance, we may indulge in the Holy Grail of “me time”: a nap.

Even now, long past my child-rearing days, a nap seems like a stolen pleasure.

“She Speaks” is a column by women writers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@staradvertiser.com.