I introduced my mother to one of my classmates named Rachel. “Rachel, where are you from?” my mother asked. “Philadelphia,” Rachel replied. “Oh, my daughter was conceived in Philadelphia.” Smooth, without missing a beat. In twenty-five years, I had never heard this.
I have also had some off-the-cuff, somehow memorable comments made to me that turned out to be Big Deals, years later, when more time had played out and more information became available.
For me, the biggest one was a casual question from an uncle I was visiting for the summer, making small talk as he drove me around to show off their city. “So how is your dad’s son doing?”
My dad’s…what? “Oh, Pete? He’s good.” (Pete was my mom’s son, that my dad adopted.)
“No, his other…” and then my uncle paused, certainly realizing he was about to be sharing information that had not been shared with me. “Yeah, Pete - I was just confused. Glad to hear he is doing well.”
That one took almost 25 years, my dad’s death, and my mom’s desire to tell me the truth, to make sense.
