My mother doesn’t know any of this. She doesn’t know I prefer copying out to cutting out. I’ve never told her that I compile[11] quotations at all.
There’s nothing very shocking about that; for all our chatting, we don’t have the words to begin certain conversations. My mother and I talk on the phone at least once a week, and in some ways, we are each other’s most dedicated listener. She tells me about teaching English to those old Russian ladies at the library where she volunteers; I tell her about job applications, cover letters, a grant I’d like to win. We talk about my siblings[12], her siblings, the president, and movies. We make each other laugh so hard that I choke[13] and she cries. But what we don’t say could fill up rooms. Fights with my father. Small failures in school. Anything, really, that pierces[14] us.
I like to say that my mother has never told me “I love you.” There’s something reassuring in its self-pitying simplicity[15] —as if the three-word absence explains who I am and wins me sympathy—so I carry it with me, like a label on my back. I synthesize our cumbersome relationship with an easy shorthand[16]: my mother never said “I love you.” The last time my mother almost spoke the words was two years ago, when she called to tell me that a friend had been hospitalized[17].
I said, “I love you, Mom.”
She said, “Thank you.”
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