Mid-Life

Of everything I say, my mother hears a third. It’s easy when you’re young, she shouts through the phone. Not always, I reply. Across the kitchen, my daughter interrupts her texting. Why are you yelling? I move my lips, soundless: I’m talking to your grandmother. Then I salt the cauliflower casserole. My daughter shakes her head, disgusted or disinterested, it’s hard to tell. In her eyes I am the pusher of vegetables, teller of mortifying details, the worry czar. She thinks I hear a third of what she says. When the casserole emerges, over-seasoned and burnt, I pinch money from the savings jar and take us out for fast food. French fries in our laps, we ride the dirt road alongside cornrows to the river. Under a full moon my daughter says: Let’s take a picture. We look so good right now. I stop on the incline of a ditch. Heads together, we laugh, yet the camera only captures my moon-soaked scowl—nothing like the carefree I feel. My daughter sings a radio song, our hair wind wild. Dipping over the ditch, the car’s low beams slide wide across adolescent corn, and I move my lips. In the rattle of dirt and engine I can only hear a third of what I say…You are…until the dust settles…good…and the bald tires seize the road…enough.