We Need to Talk

Here’s a piece of something.  I don’t know what:

Angie rolled her eyes at her mother, not so much in the directly disrespectful manner of an average fifteen-year-old girl as out of expectation of what was to come.  Another lecture of how life and kids were back when she was Angie’s age.

“But Mom, when you were my age, I bet you were already about 40,” she said, punctuating her sentence with a laugh.

Not that her mother would ever really tell her about her childhood.  Vague lessons in life and generalities about time spent on a farm, in “the city,” and in an RV bumping around the U.S. were all Angie ever heard of.  Somehow her mother always managed to avoid giving specifics by adding more generalities on top of the others, until she had built an entirely empty empire.  When Angie was little she never questioned anything her mother said, but she wasn’t so easily fooled any longer and she wanted real answers before her mother passed away.  After all, once the cancer defeated her mother, Angie didn’t want to be an orphan.  There had to be some family somewhere.  Somebody had to have driven that RV, right?

Her mother took Angie’s hand between her two frail ones and held it to her lips, pressing them gently to the back of Angie’s hand, as soft and yet strong as a hummingbird flutter.  “I know what you’re thinking, Angie, and you’re right.  We need to talk.”