L

She was a charmer. Something of a looker too, so that made some things easy. Some, with eggs scrambled on the sidewalk. Had this tug-of-war with a friend over a boy. The friend lost, and your mother would, in time, marry the boy. Hazy about the particulars, but my sympathies went to the friend anyway, who was a mutual friend, less of a looker, but it was only sympathies anyway and what is to be jewel-boxed from such things. Where you are now if not seriously planting a device? How much of you is your mother, how much of you is your father, how much of you is the friend of your mother you knew nothing about and she had a much longer name: whoever taught you how to play the abacus owes you a refund. None of the above, an activist. She would never have told you.