Small Fry

by Lisa Brennan-Jobs

The sun made lace on my legs.

whenever I passed a mirror, caught my reflection by accident, and saw that I was not as dirty or repulsive as I pictured myself, it gave me a start.

He was very troubled, Lisa. We don’t need to hate him for it.” I hated him all the same.

hills wrinkled up together at the end of the narrow valley

“See colors as they are, not the ones they’re supposed to be,”

the way that young girls sometimes fall in love with women who aren’t their mothers.

My happiness had been pulled from the reserve of hers, a limited string we had to share.

As if the emotional thrift of the world meant there was never enough for both of us at any one time.

when I read Mona’s books, they made me want to write my own sentences.

I wanted a conflagration of talk, of questions, of noticing.

above me the whole vast sky was covered in stars. They ripped at my heart.

I remembered to remember later.

I see now that we were at cross-purposes. For him, I was a blot on a spectacular ascent, as our story did not fit with the narrative of greatness and virtue he might have wanted for himself. My existence ruined his streak. For me, it was the opposite: the closer I was to him, the less I would feel ashamed; he was part of the world, and he would accelerate me into the light.

And so I waited in this suspended state, in order to keep him.

Over time I learned he would always fall. Still, I let him carry me because it seemed important to him.

His mood was like black soot in the air.

There was a thin line between civility and cruelty in him,

As if beauty was measured by how strong an obstacle it had to overcome.

She didn’t try, and the trying was beauty to me then.

The sunlight was so bright it erased the spots it hit.

Gnats bounced like the surface of carbonated water where the grass met the air.

the formation of a new family needn’t hinge on the eradication of the existing one.

He wanted me to be around, but in another room, in his orbit, not too close. I was supposed to occupy the path drawn by a compass circling around the point that was him.

It was hard to understand why someone who had enough money would create a sense of scarcity, why he wouldn’t lavish us with it.

I wished that I wanted less, needed less, was one of those succulents that have a tangle of wiry, dry roots and a minty congregation of leaves and can survive on only the smallest bit of moisture and air.

Now I felt he’d crush me if I let him. He would tell me how little I meant over and over until I believed it. What use was his genius to me?

he had been negligent about spending time with me and caring for me, but now that it was time for me to go, he was angry at my departure.

They didn’t like the idea that because my father had money and was surrounded by people who pandered to him, he could get away with being cruel to a child.

“Cut the sanctimonious bullshit, Steve.”

I didn’t buy the idea that one invitation, one weekend, could have justified his ten years of almost silence, and the withholding of money for college tuition in my final year.

He’d waited to apologize until there was hardly anything left of him.