abby’s mom, mary jones, had been married four times the last time abby checked, but never to abby’s father. she always kept what she called her real name, mary jones.
because that’s who i am. she would say, as if somebody was arguing with her, although nobody ever did.
mary claimed to not be sure who abby’s father was. it was definitely one of two guys, she told abby, but they were both jerks. that is all you have to know. whichever one it was, he was just some jerk.
when abby’s second grade teacher, grace emerson, asked abby what her daddy was, she replied, just some jerk.
grace thought that was hilarious, and repeated it to the other teachers.
they all thought it was pretty funny, except for tony derrick, one of the two male teachers in the elementary school. tony had been attracted to grace, and sometimes thought of trying to be more friendly with her, but he thought this comment showed her true nature, and he was disillusioned.
tony became abby’s third grade teacher, and he was reminded of the incident almost eevery time he looked at abby. he wondered what kind of mother would tell her child such a thing.
but mary never came to the parent-teacher meetings.
when asked to describe herself, mary would say i’m a fighter for justice. or sometimes just, i’m a person who hates injustice.
i only have one thing to say to you, she told abby more than once. just one. always be for the underdog. always. that is what my mother taught me and that is all you have to know. find out who the underdog is, and be for them.
mary would tell stories about her own childhood in which her mother and grandmother would take her to demonstrations and political rallies, but the stories never made much sense or seemed very interesting to abby - stuff that happened thirty years ago! - and as she grew up she learned to tune them out, and then mary stopped telling them.
when abby was in middle school, mary lost her job at an insurance agency where she had worked for twelve years, and she was very bitter about it.
i sold out! she would complain to abby, who only wanted to be left alone to do her homework. i sold out to the man, and what good did it do me? i never should have betrayed my heritage, - the revolution!
this was the first abby had heard of mary actually being “in “ the revolution instead of just hearing stories about it from mary's mother and grandmother.
it kept you alive for twelve years, didn’t it? abby asked.
listen to that! listen to that? from a twelve year old! what are you, a professor of economics at oxford or m i t? when i was your age i wanted to burn the world to the ground!
abby just wanted to do her homework.
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