Chapter Eighteen
My uncle racked up the billiard balls and told me about meeting my mother for the first time. “You know, I’ll never forget the first time I saw her. That would be…’75, I guess? I don’t remember the date, but I do remember the face.” He took off the triangle and looked over the arrangement, making sure it was perfect. “You want to break?”
I nodded, still enthralled by what he might have to say.
“So pretty…but that’s not all. She had a habit of looking…” He glanced down to the pool table as I shattered the union of the balls. Not a one went in. “Sad.”
He let the word sit, strangely. Then he got a ball in. Stripes.
“Sad?” It affected me, though I didn’t know what he meant.
“I don’t mean in a weepy, depressed way,” he clarified quickly. “She was happy. Been happy as long
