Proof Kate is Becoming a Better Person

Kate was doing Ronnie another favor because the baby was so new. When Bubber was new, she hadn’t at all cared. This indicated to her that a change was taking place. A ripening of her female organs. She was becoming a good daughter, a worthy spouse, a loving sister. Could she not from this extrapolate to a point in the future at which she was a fine mother? Photographs and knick-knacks, which she hated, notwithstanding.

It was the mother’s birthday. In her life, Kate had usually remembered the mother’s birthday at about 4:30 in the afternoon. Enough time to make the birthday call but not enough time to send the birthday flowers. Living, as she had, away from the hometown for most of her life, there were no visible reminders. Now there was Ronnie making herself visible. This was a birthday for which Kate had been able t prepare, and yet the impossibility of buying the mother a present was as real now as it had been at Christmastime. So now, as then, she had crocheted a hat. The good thing about her mother in this situation was her sincere indifference to gifts of all sorts and her ability to genuinely communicate that. Everyone else’s mother was all about guilt – not Kate’s. With this mother it was possible to start each day a new record, and have the old blotchy one truly forgotten. Kate held her shapeless oatmeal-colored hat before her and went in.

She felt like saying, Mother, do you love Ronnie the best because she’s so good or do you love Babe the best because she’s so bad?

Kitty, I love you the best.

Why Mommy?

Because you’re so pretty.