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Camelot Eulogy

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I started working at Camelot’s Books two years ago. It’s the only job I’ve ever enjoyed. I don’t make a lot of money, but I never have to pay for books. If anything interesting ever happens to me, I am going to write a book myself. I tell this to Thomas, but he only laughs.
Thomas says I don’t owe my family anything. Not even a eulogy. He says, “but sometimes you have to be the bigger person.”
Thomas asks what my mom did for a living and I tell him that she was a professor. She taught photography. I used to hide in the darkrooms. Whenever I met one of my mother’s students they would always tell me how lucky I was to have such an attentive and loving mother.

My boyfriend calls, but I don’t answer.

I find a pen in the glove compartment. …show more content…

We get back into the car. I breathe deeply. Through puffs of smoke, Thomas says, “That guy sounds like a dick.” We merge onto a different highway. The sun is rising. I think only of the Pacific Ocean, of the light on the water, of the sound of waves crashing over my feet. I remember kayaking on the ocean with my father and his friend. I was young, nine or ten. On top of the waves, my father told me that we were going to roll the kayak. He said that while we were under the water, I couldn’t let go of him. He said that I had to make him proud, that I would be in trouble if I embarrassed him in front of his friend. He said that my sister was too afraid to roll the kayak, but I was different, I was brave. Once we got under the water, dad kept flailing around. He tried to push me off of him, but my legs were locked around his chest. He was testing me, but I wouldn’t let go. My lungs burned. I told myself that I just needed to hang on ten more seconds, ten more seconds. I thought I could hear my dad’s voice under the waves. Someone was under the waves with us. Arms pulled me away from dad, but I fought them. The arms were too strong, they pulled me into the air and held me above the waves. I thought that dad would be furious that I had let go, but once he rolled the kayak back up, dad looked afraid. His friend asked him what had happened. Dad said he wasn’t strong enough to roll us back up, that he couldn’t breathe, that he …show more content…

I thought she would laugh, but she didn’t. We were eating dinner together. My sister and dad were out to a movie. It was quiet, peaceful inside the house. My mother said, “You could be good at that.” When I asked her why she felt that way, she smiled. She said, “I know you’re always telling stories in your head.” She surprised me. I asked her if she thought my sister could be a writer and she said, “Not in the same way.” I wanted her to talk more about who she thought I could be, but my dad and sister came home. My dad was mad that we hadn’t made enough dinner for him, that we hadn’t thought to turn on the porch light, that the pesto had been left on the counter, that he always had to clean up after us.
When I woke up in the morning, my mom had left for work. My dad was singing in the kitchen, banging pots around. I got up, tiptoed down the hall, washed my face. A neatly wrapped present lay on the bathroom counter. It was addressed to me. I stuffed it into my robe pocket, and rushed back down the hall. Under the covers, I opened the package. On the first page of a small, leather notebook, an inscription read: to a writer, love your mother. I never wrote anything in the notebook. I could never think of anything good

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