“Maybe this will help.” She offers me a small bound book with one hand and pours hot water from the kettle into the teapot with the other.
The brown leather cover is embossed with gold lettering in the top left corner.
I squeak with anticipation.
Collins Paragon Diary No. 181
A quick glance at the inner leaf reveals my mother’s beautiful script in what must be fountain pen. The elegant curls of her full name followed by Invermere B.C., on the opposite leaf in blue ballpoint is noted 1941-1942. Quick mental math lets me know it holds a peek at age 16, in her own words.
”I doubt there’s much there, “ she says.
A practiced mother of three she won’t offer up the jugular lightly. She fills our mugs with tea.
I wrench it open at no particular page and read aloud the adolescent observations of my seemingly shy mother.
“Gee Bud is swell, I hope he comes over and listens to the radio again tonight!”
THE COLLINS PARAGON DIARY NO. 181
I’ve never in all the long years of tea-stained afternoons heard of this boy. While I howl with laughter, my hand clapping the table hard enough to slop tea from my mug, my mother says, “I don’t recall liking him that much.”
“Well he gets three exclamation points on Saturday the 17th of May.” I snort and continue mining for gold.
“Perhaps I’ve made a mistake…” her words linger between us.
She makes no effort to claw back the tiny compendium of angst. I imagine her wrestling me for it and know who would lose.
At seventy-five the woman still has the reflexes of a mongoose. I simmer down and start to read from the beginning. This is the year her first love grows up, joins up, and comes back to town a Casanova. It is a year of measles, death, heartbreak and LEARNING TO DRIVE A CAR!? (Something she never did in my lifetime). We drink tea and I wonder at her absolute trust in me.
“How do you like the name Jane?” I ask. Like her it is practical and unadorned. Perfect for fictionalizing the early ups and downs of her life.
“That should do nicely.”
