twenty-eight years ago today my mom turned twenty-one. I was born four months later. I was always one of the odd kids with the really young mom. the hasn't-been-to-college mom. the odd-jobs mom. the quietly fierce mom, the poverty-does-not-equal-idiocy mom, who knew I was entitled to both g/t classes and state-funded speech therapy, and made sure I was placed in both. she divorced my dad when I was eighteen. it was as if she'd been waiting her whole life to do it. I remember the first time I met her second husband. it was in the winter of my last year of high school. my parents were still together and I was living at home. my mom introduced me to him, and their giddiness was a small cloud hanging in the coffeeshop. it was utterly unmistakable. I felt like a classmate was introducing me to her boyfriend. I forgot she was married to my dad, and just felt happy that she seemed excited for once. and anyway. time passes. they are happy in their woodsy home, with two babies and two dogs. and it is her birthday today.