Look Closer by Stewart Lewis

Author:Stewart Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2019-01-10T05:00:00+00:00

11.

do the best you can

My mother has asked me if I want her special smoothie a million times, so I finally take her up on it. And it actually tastes good. We sit in the kitchen, the early sun sifting through the tree branches outside our window, making gauzy patterns on the table. She starts to tell me what’s in the smoothie, and I hold up my hand.

“I don’t need to know all the ingredients.”

“Okay, okay.”

She’s in her yoga clothes, her hair pulled up in a loose bun.

“I’m having dinner at the Jasons’ later,” she says. “It’s been forever.”

“Yes, it has.”

My mother used to spend a lot of time with the Jasons. I remember coming home from school to the three of them hanging out in the afternoons, thankful for the distraction. Instead of the usual peppered questions about my school day from my mother, the Jasons would entertain me. We’d make cookies and sneak bites of the batter, or they’d put on skits, pretending to be animals, or sing me songs about glamour girls with their “hair so high.”

I never understood why they even liked my mother, but there is a part of her that I’ll never know. The part that people from the outside see. My view of her will always be tainted by our mother-daughter dynamic. With my dad, I somehow got both sides. He was my father, but I saw him as other people did, too. That’s what made his death even harder. Not only did I lose a father, I lost a friend, a hero, a partner in crime.

“Tell them I said hi.”

“Will do. What are you doing today?”

Maybe try and save another life, I don’t say.

“Probably hang out with Edge.”

“Sounds good.” Her eyes gloss over for a second, her face blank. I try to see what the Jasons see in her. The person and not just my mother.

“Can I ask you something?” I say, even though I don’t have a question in mind yet.

“Of course. I’m all ears,” she says.

“Don’t say all ears.”

My mother makes a noise. “Why don’t you write me a list of acceptable and unacceptable sayings?”

I smile and say, “Okay. It will start with Tee Tee.”

“I’ve been good about that!”

“You’re right, you have.”

I take another sip of the tasty sludge a.k.a. smoothie. I look at the background picture on my mother’s phone. It’s a picture of Larry on a beach, wearing one of those wide-brimmed hats. I hold up the phone.

“What do you see in him? I mean, besides that he has money?”

She makes a face, but I think my question is reasonable.

“You’ll find that even when the money’s there, it’s never about the money. Larry’s easy to be around… He doesn’t judge me.”

“Did Dad judge you?”

“Look, Tee…Tegan, it’s not right to compare the two. You and I both know they’re totally different people. Your father didn’t judge me, but I guess I judged myself more around him.”

“Why?”

“Well, I always felt I had to be a better person for him. He did so much for you, for our country, I always felt like I needed to do more.

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