Vague

Last week, I re-read my unfinished novel from last summer term. Only this morning, as I sat down to put the final touches on this short story, have I come to see that in the years since I shelved my early attempt for good, the loose ends had all tied themselves. Complete as it was, when I handed a copy to my mother in the nursing home, she frowned as she skimmed through. “Don’t make it your day job,” she said, and went back to her magazines. I never told her, in the many years since she survived her surgery, that I always blamed her and her lousy personality for how my life has gone.