by Randy Shepherd

familiar strangers

"I don't know what you see in him," she said with some irritation. I looked up quietly into my coffee cup and watched the hot brown liquid fill the cup. I smiled to myself. Mom always said this about each of my friends sooner or later. "He just doesn't seem to be as intelligent as you are," she continued, "and he always seems to be finding fault with you." She had finally gotten around to Johnand it was almost six years that we had been "sharing an apartment," John and I. I wondered why she hadn't reached this point sooner. I hoped it was because she really liked John. "He's so proper and staid," she continued. "You are so different and he's so ordinary, I don't know how you put up with him."

There was some truth to what she said. John was critical and had a certain propriety which just missed pomposity. Yet, how could she know his tenderness? His faithfulness? And despite his critical ways-his forgivingness? How could she really know anything about him? She had only seen him at any length some four or five times and had spoken to him a few times on the telephone. No one found Mom a particularly easy person to get along with and, I guess, John did not hesitate to show his irritation-he wasn't always tactful.

As I raised the steaming cup to my mouth, my heart began to throb excitedly. . I had suddenly remembered with vividness—and a sharp pang of anxiety—the particular reason for this visit. Would I have the courage to go through with it? I had to put my cup down quickly-my hands were too weak.

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