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shirt that fits you best.”
    “But Mom, what if the first shirt is the best shirt? And what if it’s gone by the time I’m done shopping? What if I never find a shirt like that again?”
    She wasn’t used to him arguing with her. “This isn’t about shirts, Lincoln.”
    She always used his name when she talked to him. No one else said his name unless they were trying to get his attention. It was like she was patting herself on the back for thinking of such a great name—or maybe trying to remind him that it was she who had named him. That he was her doing. Once, during those mildly turbulent teenage years, the Sam years, he had yelled at his mother, “You don’t understand me!”
    “Of course I understand you, Lincoln,” she replied. “I’m your mother. No one will ever know you like I do. No one will ever love you like I do.”
    Sam had proved his mother wrong.
    And then had proved her right.
    But before all that, Sam had sat on his bed with a green Mead notebook and said, “Come on, Lincoln, you have to pick a major.”
    “You pick my major,” he’d said. He’d laid his head on her lap and kept reading a paperback, something with swords and goblin queens.
    “Lincoln. Seriously. You have to declare a major. It’s required. Let’s focus here. What do you want to do with your life?”
    He set down his paperback and smiled at her until she smiled back at him. “You,” he said, touching his thumb to her chin.
    “You can’t major in me.”
    He turned back to his book. “Then I’ll figure it out later.”
    She snatched the book from his hands. “Can we please just talk about this? Seriously?”
    He sighed and sat up next to her. “Okay. We’re talking.”
    “Okay.” She smiled, she was getting her way. “Now, think about it, what do you want to do for a living?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What do you think you might want to do?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What are you good at? And don’t say you don’t know.”
    He didn’t say anything at all. She stopped smiling. “Fine,” she said. “We’ll make a list.” She opened the notebook and wrote THINGS LINCOLN IS GOOD AT at the top of the page.
    “Dangling preposition,” he said. “Dubious start.”
    Number one , she wrote, Grammar .
    “And spelling,” he said. “I won the fifth-grade spelling bee.”
    2. Spelling.
    3. Math.
    “I’m not good at math.”
    “You are,” she said. “You’re in honors calculus.”
    “I’m good enough to be in honors calculus, but I’m not good at honors calculus. I’m getting a B.”
    She underlined “ Math .”
    “What else?” she asked him.
    “I don’t like this,” he said.
    “What. Else.” She poked him in the chest with the end of her purple ink pen.
    “I don’t know. History. I’m good at history.”
    4. History.
    “You’re good at physics, too,” she said, “and social studies. I saw your report card.”
    “You’re making it seem like I’m good at six different things, when really it’s all the same thing.” He took the pen and put a line through her list. In the margin, he wrote:
    1. School.
    Sam took the pen back.
    2. Ruining perfectly good lists.
    He reached for the pen again. “No,” she said, “this isn’t your list anymore. It’s mine.”
    “Fine with me.” He picked up his paperback and put his arm around her waist, tucking her into his side. She kept writing. He kept reading. An hour or so later, he walked her to her car. When he got back to his room, he found the notebook open on his pillow.
THINGS LINCOLN IS GOOD AT
     
School.
Ruining perfectly good lists.
Avoiding the issue.
Not worrying about things he REALLY should worry about.
Not worrying about things he really shouldn’t worry about.
Staying calm/Being calm/Calmness.
Turning the page with one hand.
Reading.
And writing.
Pretty much anything to do with WORDS.
And pretty much anything to do with NUMBERS.
Guessing what teachers want.
Guessing what I want.
SECOND BASE. (Ha.)
Laughing at my