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As the weeks turned to months and more bumper stickers spent their allotted time on Saphix, my mother was not heard from "Maybe she'll call over Easter"

"Why do you put yourself through such grief?" Shannie asked

"What grief?" I peered out the GTI's atching the world race by

"Don't be a twit When she doesn't call over Easter, you'll wonder if she will over Meo on?"

"You forgot Labor day," I mumbled

"You're hopeless," Shannie retorted

"What if you lost a parent?" I questioned her profile

"I did, ass wipe!" Shannie punched ot; I' my arm

"Don't you think Ithe hum of the road "I do," she answered "You knohat? It's really though; Do you knohy? I don't knohat my father was like Your mother was a bitch, everyone knows that! If I kneas a prick, maybe it would be easier But I ro Arthur all wrapped up in one He's your Grandfather and Clark Gable He's flawless - expect that he's dead! He's fucking dead!" Shannie paused - her eyes focused on the road "If he was alive, I ht hate the prick, but he's not, so I love him; and I miss him You know your mother," Shannie repeated "You know she's a bitch! I envy you Just James! I wish I could hate my father! I wouldn't miss him soChar," I whispered

"I resent you taking for granite that I don't miss him You presumptuous shit! God I wish I could hate you!"

I still fret, no less than I fretted the following Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthday - my seventeenth When my mother didn't call, didn't write - not even a si Easter, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor day with knotted stomachs and dashed hopes When the phone call that I kneould arrive, didn't - I sulked She ht Maybe she is dead, I worried If she was dead, she wouldn't have forgottenthe World Series whenwas hastened by the 1989 Loma Prieta Quake