holding up the apple for her to see. “I’m trying. Here’s a live update for you, I’m live streaming it to you right now, look, I’m trying to eat better. I just spit out some Pepsi in the sink. This is a glass of water.”
“I wish you would calm down,” my mom says. “You’re gonna have a heart attack. Just relax. Treat me like I’m your mother, like I care about you, like I love you, treat me like I went through twenty-six hours of labor for you, twenty-six hours and then a cesarean section to top it off. They had to slice me open, Ed, you didn’t wanna come out, you were two weeks late, did I ever tell you that? You wanna talk about feeling full.”
“I wish you would stop throwing it in my face, how many hours of labor you went through to get me here. I didn’t ask to come.”
“Throwing it in your face? You think I throw it in your face? Why you ungrateful little—”
She runs over to me and tickles me behind the neck. To my horror, I can’t help but laugh. “Stop. Okay. Okay. Just, you calm down yourself. What do you wanna hear?” I say, and pull my shirt down over my belly. “I don’t have updates. There’s not much out there for someone with virtually no work experience, with an MA in comp lit. I look. I scour. I get frustrated, and sure, I get distracted. There’s so much to look up, and then when you think of something new, when you discover something new, it’s like you’re thinking with another mind, like you have access to a bigger, collective brain. We’re on the edge of something here,” I say, knowing how it must sound to her.
“You’re on the edge of something all right. Collective brain? Scour? You make it sound like you’re doing a lot more than clicking links and reading. But okay, so like what kind of job are you looking for? I mean, what categories do you look under?”
“I look under writing gigs, and that’s almost always some kind of scam designed for naïve aspiring writers looking to work for free or to win a contest. I look under arts organizations. Then I get lost in the nonprofit morass. Grant-writing stuff and, you know, most places require experience or—”
“Grant writing? You could do that, couldn’t you?”
“I know nothing about grant writing.”
“You could learn. Research. There’s probably YouTube tutorials or something, right?”
“Those are my updates,” I say, and feel a pull from a limb gone loose. While I was talking something in me reached back to remember all that I’d once hoped I’d be, and placed it next to the feeling of being who I am now. “I’m sorry I’m such a fuckup,” I say. And I don’t want to but I really mean it.
“Don’t talk like that. You’re not a loser, Ed.”
“I didn’t say I was a loser. Bill says that. That’s Bill’s word for me,” I say, and whatever true sadness I felt is gone. I turn to go back to my room.
“Just…wait. Don’t go back to your room. Please. Wait a second. Sit down. Let’s talk, this isn’t talking.”
“I’ve been sitting down all day.”
“And whose fault is that?” she says, and I start to walk toward my room.
“Okay, stand, but stay. We don’t have to talk about Bill. How are your stories coming along then, sweetie?”
“My stories? Come on, Mom.”
“What?”
“Whenever we talk about my writing, I feel like you’re trying to make me feel better about the fact that I’m even doing it.”
“Ed, we can all use encouragement. All of us.”
“That’s true, that’s true, Mom, you could use some too, but do you hear me telling you that you need to stop smoking and drinking so much, that you should find healthy alternatives to passing out in front of the TV every night, especially given your job, I think even your title is substance abuse counselor. No. I don’t. Because it’s not helpful. Now can I go?”
“You know, you still act like you’re fourteen, like you can’t wait to get back to your video games. I’m not always gonna be here, Ed. One day you’re gonna turn around and I’ll be gone, and you’ll wish you had appreciated these times we have together.”
“Oh my God.”
“I’m just saying. The internet has a lot to offer, but they’ll never make a website that can take the place of your mother’s company.”
“So can I go?”
“One more