Small Fry

by Lisa Brennan-Jobs

These were the Reagan years, and Reagan had denigrated single mothers and welfare mothers—calling single mothers welfare queens taking government handouts so they could drive Cadillacs—and later she talked about how Reagan was an idiot and a crook and had designated ketchup a vegetable in school lunches.

liked looking at sunlight from the shade, the way it didn’t wash all around and blind you, but was a separate, glowing thing.

what it felt like to arrive prepared for class, to understand the lesson and have a homework sheet filled out right. After several nights of his help, I wanted to arrive prepared, and to feel the calm and get the attention that came with it,

For school, I’d read a book about a mother and daughter on a bridge. When the bomb hit, the daughter had become a soot smear on the ground, while the mother was left naked, her skin charred with the shapes of the dark flowers on her kimono. The image haunted me.

I sensed it was a drastic rule for two people who’d hardly missed a few days together for thirteen years—and that the formation of a new family needn’t hinge on the eradication of the existing one.

My father had already left me when I was little; now he made me care for the next one as he walked out the door.