The Mothers: A Novel by Jennifer Gilmore

Author:Jennifer Gilmore [Gilmore, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Adoption & Fostering, Family Life, General, Literary, Family & Relationships, Fiction
ISBN: 9781451697254
Google: Vwpse7tJWcgC
Amazon: 1451697252
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2013-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

14

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March 2010

Okay, ready?”

“Yup.”

“You go.”

“No, why don’t you read yours first?”

“Okay, okay, Jesse.” Ramon ran both his hands through his hair. “I’ll go, but I’m not done with it yet.”

“Just read what you have then.”

“Okay. So. ‘I was born in Madrid, Spain, in 1969,’ Ramon read from his laptop. ‘When I was two years old my father, who is Spanish and a geologist, got a job working with BP.’ Can you believe it?” He looked up at me. “BP of all things.” He shook his head. “‘We moved to the Netherlands, where we stayed for two years. From there, due to his job, we moved every three to four years. We lived in Gabon, Africa; England; Argentina; Colombia; and back to the Netherlands, where I finished high school and from where I came to the States for college.’” Ramon looked up. “What do you think?”

I shrugged. “I guess that’s as good a place to start as any.”

“I’m using the guidelines.” He rubbed his fingers over his chin, with the dimple I have always believed to be the imprint of his mother’s watchful finger.

“But it’s the autobiography part.”

“Yes, but I want to be sure to address all the items in the guidelines. I’m doing it in one go.”

“Okay,” I said. “Go.”

He cleared his throat. “‘Growing up I remember my father working long hours and also helping my mother and me adjust to the new countries we moved to. He was a great resource. As an avid reader, he’d tell us tales and the history of the countries we were about to embark to. Moving and adjusting to new countries and cultures was hard and I remember these moments with my father. They subdued the apprehension that the moving always created. My mother, who is Italian, and had never left Italy before meeting my father, had great anxiety each time we left somewhere.’”

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

Ramon looked up from the screen. “That my mother had anxiety?”

“No. That I am well aware of. I didn’t know that your dad read to you about the places you were headed to.” He nodded and then began again. “‘All this moving forged a very strong bond between my mother and me. She was my guardian, and often, my best friend. She was a stay-at-home mom and was always around when I came home from school. Maybe even overly protective at times, but understandably so, as a lot of the environments I grew up in were quite dangerous.

“‘Because of that, my mother kept me home a lot. My hardest times were adjusting to the new schools and making new friends with children that I often had nothing in common with. I remember moving to Venezuela and attending an American school after three years of living in England, where I was enrolled in a strict private boys’ school. I wore short trousers and had a British accent. That was a tough adjustment and something I wouldn’t necessarily want for my child, since young children can’t always understand why someone is different.

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