About (excerpt)

Fae Leslie

It’s not too hard to write about my mother. It’s too hard to write about all of her. About the sharpness in her face when she disowned me in the Delhi airport on the last day of family vacation in front of my Granny, my sisters, and the rest of the line boarding flight 2813. About the time I realized she wasn’t perfect as I waited in the St. James parking lot for her to pick me up, watching the sun disappear, sitting on my kneepads so my butt wouldn’t turn numb. About the way she makes me laugh with a look, and there we are, crumpled, silently shaking with laughter on the kitchen floor. About how after we moved in the middle of the night, she made me mom number two without asking. About when we go to Sendik’s hungry, even though we know it’s a bad idea, and we get enough food for a family of 20 instead of a family of two—sometimes five—teasing the meat guy and the seafood guy and the lady pushing around her dog in the cart as we weave through the aisles, giddy with hunger.