She looked at me suspiciously.  Well, she was in a suspicious frame of mind, I understand that, dealing with the intransigent union.  But it went deeper.  We had never managed to talk very well.  It was a depressing thought to realize, once again, that when I had something important to share with someone, she was the best that sprang to mind.  I thought about getting up and leaving right then.  I know I hesitated, because Callie did what she had so often done when I'd tried to talk to her as a child:  she changed the subject.

"That Brenda, she's a much nicer child than you give her credit for.  We had a long talk after we found out you'd left.  Do you have any idea how much she looks up to you?"

"Some idea.  Callie, I-"

"She's putting herself through a history course that would stagger you, all so she can keep up when you talk about 'ancient history.'  I think it's hopeless.  Some things you have to live through to really understand.  I know about the twenty-first century because I was there.  The twentieth century, or the nineteenth can't ever seem as real to me, though I've read a great deal about them."

"Sometimes I don't think last month seems real to Brenda."

"That's where you're wrong.  She knows her recent history a lot better than you'd think, and I'm talking about things that happened fifty, a hundred years before she was born.  We sat around and talked . . . well, mostly I told her stories, I guess.  She seemed fascinated."  She smiled at the memory.  It didn't surprise me that Brenda had found favor with Callie.  There are few qualities my mother values more in a human being than a willing ear.

"I don't have much contact with young people.  Like I was telling her, we move in different social circles.  I can't stand their music and they think I'm a walking fossil.  But after a few hours she started opening up to me.  It was almost like having . . . well, a daughter."

She glanced at me, then took a long drink of beer.  She realized she had gone too far.

Normally, a remark like that would have been the start of the seventy zillionth repeat of our most popular argument.  That night, I was willing to let it slide.  I had much more important things on my mind.  When I didn't rise to it, she must have finally realized how troubled I was, because she leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and looked at me.

"Tell me about it," she said, and I did.

#

But not all of it.