How do you be a child to a mother you never knew?
For twelve years my father had been enough. Family photos and a yellowing newspaper story had been enough.
Sure, from the time I’d first heard the story, I’d thought about my mother. Anne O’Reilly. The lady who saved me from the milk truck. I cried for her. For myself. Sometimes. And that was it. That’s how the world was. Other kids had mothers. Cammie O’Reilly didn’t. End of story.
Now, in the weeks after Mother’s Day, something was changing. Enough was no longer enough. Dormant feelings stirred by a smile at a ballpark moved and shifted until they shaped a thought: I was sick and tired of being motherless. I wanted one. And a second thought: If I couldn’t have my first-string mother, I’d bring one in off the bench.
But who?
A teacher?
The next lady who smiled at me?
The flash point came in five words.