– Im sure it is. Hey you know, I got to roll here soon, but I wanted to ask you something.

– You go on. We can talk later.

– Sure, but I wanted to ask something first.

– Sure, baby sure.

– Chev got in a little fender bender and hes, you know, embarrassed to ask, but I knew youd want to help if you could, so I wanted to ask if you could help him out with the repairs. And stuff.

I sat at the kitchen table, playing with the phone cord, looking at the bills stuck to the fridge with magnets, my share of each bill circled heavily in red. A thick sheaf of IOUs clipped to a magnet all their own. My signature at the bottom of each.

Mom inhaled deeply, exhaled long and slow. A cloud of smoke no doubt drifting to the ceiling.

– What about Chev, baby is he OK?

– Yeah, hes fine. But his truck, you know.

– Yes. I know. I know, Webster.

Webster. The name my dad picked. As opposed to the name she wanted. Fillmore. Not for the president, mind you, for the rock venue where they met. Webster, the name she hates to use now. Because its a reminder that they ever met anyplace at all.

Crap.

– If you could help it would really… help.

– Webster.

– Yeah, Mom.

– Do you need money?

– Well, yeah, I can always use. But thats not why, I mean, Chev is the one. I mean.

– Webster Fillmore Goodhue.

Oh, double crap.

– Yes?

– Do you need money?

Stoned as a sixty-year-old Deadhead, berry growing, commune founding, transcendentalist yogi pot cultivator can get, Mom still sees right through me. Part of the science of being a mom.

Again, crap.

– Yeah. I do.

– Well. I wish you would just ask.

– Yeah.