Read The Me You See for Free Online Page A

can’t ever know it’s the last time. That’s the way it works.
    And maybe it’s better that way.
    I had walked into the coffee shop for my Americano before
my Tuesday shift (like always) and she was there (like always). She asked if I
wanted room for cream, and like always, I refused.
    Stefia was one of those beautiful and friendly and smart
people, a mix of things that everyone would write down on their Personality
Wish List if ever they were given the option. She could hold her own in
conversation on just about every topic I’d ever brought up, which was quite a
few, since my visits usually fell smack in the middle of the dead time at the
coffee shop.
    “What’s on your mind today?” she asked, as she pressed the
lid over the to-go cup and handed it across the counter to me.
    I took the cup, removed the lid (like always), and blew
gently into the glorious bean water that would fuel my ten hour shift.
    “I’m thinking about parents,” I answered.
    “New parents? Old parents?” she asked. “Are you having
another baby?”
    I laughed. “God, no. My two are finally grown up and moved
away. I’d die if I had to go through labor at my age.”
    “You’re not that old,” Stefia said.
    “Seriously, 42 is too old for labor,” I said, putting a
definite punctuation mark on the entire idea.
    Stefia came around the counter and joined me on the
customer side of the shop, filling her own mustard colored mug from the air pot
on the center island. She leaned against the granite slab, sipping her dark
hazelnut blend (like always) and waited for me to speak.
    “Do you think parents matter?” I asked her.
    She looked down at her feet and I could tell she was
wiggling her toes around in the fronts of the moccasins she wore around the
shop.
    “That’s kind of a loaded question,” she answered.
    “Do you think how a parent raises their child makes any
difference in a child’s life?”
    “There are a lot of things that make a difference in a
child’s life,” Stefia said. “Not just the parents. Maybe not the parents at
all.”
    “It has to make some difference, doesn’t it?”
    “Why? Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with how you
were raised.”
    “It has to play some part,” I said.
    “Not always. Why do some kids play violent video games and
not go crazy, but others play the same game and shoot up their school?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. And then with a sigh that spoke more
than my words, added, “I just don’t know anymore.”
    “What’s really going on?” she asked. “What are you actually
talking about?”
    All I needed was an invitation and it came spewing out of
my mouth. I told her about the phone call I’d received two nights earlier and
how my 19 year old son was in jail for possession for the third time. And his
girlfriend was pregnant but she’d lost the baby when he pushed her down the
stairs.
    “He wasn’t raised that way,” I said. “I mean, my husband
and I are so far from that world…it’s like, how did he end up there? You
believe me, right?”
    “People always want to blame the parents,” she said,
without skipping a beat.
    “Well, what else is there?”
    She took a chair at the table I was at, her thin and toned
body like a trophy of youth she wouldn’t appreciate until she was older. And I
wondered suddenly why I was discussing any of my issues with her. A solid
twenty years—at least—separated us. Why did her opinion even matter to me?
    “Parents aren’t the be-all, end-all of influence,” she
continued with a shrug. “Sometimes, what influences someone is just random.”
     “Random,” I repeated, practically choking on the word.
“What about your parents? They’ve influenced you, right?”
    Stefia sat with her elbows resting on the table, hands
holding her cup just under chin, but she didn’t drink.
    “My mom isn’t around. Hasn’t been for several years. My dad
is just barely getting by with mom gone, even all this time later. He’s