Lessons My Mom Taught Me

Mom tried to cure my flat feet by taping a bean under each tender insole. It was supposed to make me sensitive to the way things feel when I step on them. And it worked — about as well as the artificial poison she painted on my thumb to make me immune to all sorts of bitterness.

Mom wouldn’t let me sit too close to the abyss lest I ruin my eyes.

And we went places: the Badlands, Deadwood — Mom’s idea of paradise, where you should always sit facing the door.

We had hard-boiled eggs, stained slippery with the residue of tinted vinegar. She mashed up leftover turkey with mayonnaise and told us it was tuna. Why did she lie to us — all those times she said she might just call Santa and tell him not to come.

Santa always came.