WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.470 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.470 --> 00:00:02.790 align:middle line:90% Two. 00:00:02.790 --> 00:00:05.790 align:middle line:84% "My mother is holding her hand out palm up. 00:00:05.790 --> 00:00:07.470 align:middle line:90% Her hand is empty. 00:00:07.470 --> 00:00:08.520 align:middle line:90% I am 18. 00:00:08.520 --> 00:00:11.160 align:middle line:84% And she's trying to convince me to go to Europe. 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:14.160 align:middle line:90% But in it, I see coins, pennies. 00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:16.860 align:middle line:84% We are standing in the living room with the blue carpet 00:00:16.860 --> 00:00:18.780 align:middle line:90% and the cream-colored drapes. 00:00:18.780 --> 00:00:21.600 align:middle line:90% Behind me, the baby grand piano. 00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:24.570 align:middle line:90% Behind her, the gilded mirror. 00:00:24.570 --> 00:00:26.670 align:middle line:90% My mother is smaller than I am. 00:00:26.670 --> 00:00:29.130 align:middle line:90% Her hair is in a French twist. 00:00:29.130 --> 00:00:31.950 align:middle line:90% She is wearing a smart pantsuit. 00:00:31.950 --> 00:00:35.280 align:middle line:84% In the kitchen, my father is splashing Coke over whiskey 00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:37.950 align:middle line:90% and ice cubes in a tall glass. 00:00:37.950 --> 00:00:40.200 align:middle line:84% My mother is telling me that once when 00:00:40.200 --> 00:00:43.080 align:middle line:84% she was younger than me, maybe 14, 00:00:43.080 --> 00:00:45.570 align:middle line:84% her mother tried to give her pennies. 00:00:45.570 --> 00:00:48.750 align:middle line:84% They were all she had, and my mother had refused them. 00:00:48.750 --> 00:00:51.000 align:middle line:84% She had knocked them out of her mother's hands, 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:54.000 align:middle line:84% and they had spun across the wooden floor clinked 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:56.340 align:middle line:90% into the furnace grate. 00:00:56.340 --> 00:00:59.310 align:middle line:84% This is the lesson of the story, how 00:00:59.310 --> 00:01:04.290 align:middle line:84% sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to be a thankless child? 00:01:04.290 --> 00:01:06.300 align:middle line:90% But I have a stony heart. 00:01:06.300 --> 00:01:07.660 align:middle line:90% I'm 18. 00:01:07.660 --> 00:01:09.930 align:middle line:84% I have a boyfriend named Walker who 00:01:09.930 --> 00:01:11.710 align:middle line:90% doesn't want me to leave him. 00:01:11.710 --> 00:01:14.010 align:middle line:84% And even though I want to leave him, 00:01:14.010 --> 00:01:19.950 align:middle line:84% the thought of hearing him go on and on about it makes me tired. 00:01:19.950 --> 00:01:21.210 align:middle line:90% I will give anything-- 00:01:21.210 --> 00:01:25.050 align:middle line:84% I will give into almost anything for a little silence. 00:01:25.050 --> 00:01:30.240 align:middle line:84% This is how I am, a very old, a very tired 18. 00:01:30.240 --> 00:01:32.610 align:middle line:84% There are marks on my arms, but my mother 00:01:32.610 --> 00:01:34.230 align:middle line:90% has never mentioned them. 00:01:34.230 --> 00:01:36.750 align:middle line:90% There is a distance between us. 00:01:36.750 --> 00:01:39.960 align:middle line:84% 'You have built a wall around yourself,' she says this 00:01:39.960 --> 00:01:42.720 align:middle line:90% sometimes, 'and I can't get in.' 00:01:42.720 --> 00:01:45.540 align:middle line:84% But I am thinking you don't want in. 00:01:45.540 --> 00:01:47.590 align:middle line:84% You don't want to hear the truth. 00:01:47.590 --> 00:01:50.880 align:middle line:84% You just want me to be someone else. 00:01:50.880 --> 00:01:54.960 align:middle line:84% I am standing before her, a skinny 18-year-old, long hair, 00:01:54.960 --> 00:01:57.750 align:middle line:84% black T-shirt, shaggy bell bottoms. 00:01:57.750 --> 00:02:00.540 align:middle line:90% It is 1972. 00:02:00.540 --> 00:02:03.930 align:middle line:84% I have marks on my arms and a stony heart. 00:02:03.930 --> 00:02:05.760 align:middle line:90% What, she is thinking. 00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:08.009 align:middle line:90% What do you want from me? 00:02:08.009 --> 00:02:10.440 align:middle line:84% She holds out her empty hand, she 00:02:10.440 --> 00:02:12.660 align:middle line:90% believes in gestures, not words. 00:02:12.660 --> 00:02:16.620 align:middle line:84% She believes in the liftoff of the jet, in crossing the ocean, 00:02:16.620 --> 00:02:21.320 align:middle line:84% and being incommunicado, in clearing your mind."