My mother cried when I was born: an all-out, heaving fit. She arrived home from the hospital hard-breathed and hysterical: “A girl!” she wailed. “We’ve had a girl!”

It was a calamity that no one had expected, or understood. My brothers stood there bald-faced. “What does it mean?” Nathan, the oldest, had been through this drill so many times: one, two, three, four, five siblings. He hadn’t expected any sort of surprise.

“It means,” my mother told them, “that we’re going to have to work harder now. We’ve got to keep an eye out.” Girls were fragile; that was her main objection. The 1960s was still an era of motherly panic: polio, SIDS, communism, nuclear fallout. There were a thousand different evils that might steal a child away — a thousand different ways that a mother could fail.

My father was less forgiving. “Maxine!” he belted. “Pull yourself together!”

Girls were fragile; that was her main objection. The 1960s was still an era of motherly panic: polio, SIDS, communism, nuclear fallout. There were a thousand different evils that might steal a child away — a thousand different ways that a mother could fail.

But my mother would not pull herself together. The world was a dangerous place; and being female made a person even more vulnerable. My mother had come of age in the back rooms of circus acts and vaudeville numbers; she knew what it took to survive in a man’s world. Hers was a generation of women who had used beauty to their advantage: they seduced men; they got what they wanted. But I was plain-looking; it stumped my mother. She wasn’t sure what to teach me, so she taught me caution instead. “People take advantage,” she warned. “Any way they can. Even people close to you. You’ve got to be careful.”

Other times, though, my mother wasn’t nearly careful enough: loading me suddenly into the car and driving to Fresno or Sacramento or the winding central coast. Anything to get us out of the house — anything to be on the road again, going somewhere. Long before I was born, my mother had stopped pretending that she could be a good housewife. Organizing kitchen shelves; grilling steaks with a certain finesse; ironing sharp folds into my father’s shirts: these simply were not her specialties. She had other powers instead: worldly, pragmatic powers. Once, when I was five, we got into the car and drove all the way from our home in Lodi, California to Canada. My mother had two hundred dollars in her pocket; we were gone three weeks, sleeping at highway rest stops and camp grounds and church parking lots. When we came home, my brothers pouted; they had stayed home, in school. But I was young; my mother took me with her. It was the best evidence of affection I ever got.

Early in the summer of 1969, my mother brought home a heavy-bottomed machine with a thick, silver cylinder on the top. She set it up in our garage, covering over the surrounding boxes and bicycles with plastic garbage bags. When she turned the thing on, a quick spray of sugar crystals spurted out; then the machine caught its gears and rumbled on, spreading layers of sugared filaments along the sides of its gigantic metal basin. “We’re going to work a parade tomorrow,” she announced brightly. My brothers stared blankly at each other. Mom handed Nathan a pile of plastic produce bags from the grocery store. “Hold this open for me,” she instructed. Then my mother reached over and dipped her fingers coolly into the big, metal machine, pulling out a bright stream of pink cotton. Nathan held the bag carefully, and my mother slipped the candy easily inside, like delivering fresh dough to a baker’s oven. I was too little to help, so I just watched, pulling occasional strands of fluffed sugar out of the air. I could see the sweat beads begin to form along my mother’s forehead as she turned and dipped again and again, using her arms carefully, folding them just so, elbows suspended in air. Her hair grew damp and frizzy, and her lipstick turned crusty and sugar-coated as the night wore on. But my mother moved too quickly for questioning. By midnight, we had filled the family van with bloated bags of cotton candy, stick balloons, and homemade popcorn balls.

“Ready?” Mom grinned that first night, slamming shut the van doors with all her wares and children inside. And we nodded wearily, our heads bobbing asleep as she turned over the engine and began to drive.

That’s when I imagined how those other children must have envied me: wondering what it must be like to be me, living as I did at the heart of such an extraordinary life.

It might take us hours to get wherever it was we were going: Victorville or Fresno or Weed. Sometimes all the way up to the Oregon border. We’d arrive just after dawn, rolling into empty parking lots, usually a bank or a library, and start the process of preparation: grinding ice to fill the flimsy plastic cups we drenched with syrup, or tying sticks to the rubber nubs of inflated balloons. Everybody took something different: balloons or ice cones or candy apples or pink popcorn balls. But it was my mother who had a particular genius for salesmanship. On the parade route, she knew how to shout louder than the marching band, smile more compellingly than the rosebud princess, clap her feet better than the Clydesdales. Because I was the youngest, I went along with her, plucking the coins out of children’s sticky palms and handing them to my mother until I got tired. Then she would lift me up and set me down in the middle of her little metal shopping cart, where I could sit and watch the show through the mottled light of aluminum basketing and sugared cellophane bags. That’s when I imagined how those other children must have envied me: wondering what it must be like to be me, living as I did at the heart of such an extraordinary life.

Several years later, when I went out alone on a parade route for the first time, it was Mom’s younger brother who let it happen, handing me his fistful of stick balloons and a paper roll of nickels. “Why don’t we split up?” he suggested. “We’ll cover more ground that way.” My uncle Ray was just back from a dozen years in the army, and he wasn’t afraid of anything.

“My mom doesn’t let me go by myself.”

Ray shrugged; Mom wasn’t there with us. “You’re ten,” he said, as though the implication was self-evident.

My mother had been right: seduction was easy. It’s what we all depend on: other people’s enthusiasms, their inexhaustible desires.

I nodded. “All right.”

So Ray took the pink popcorn balls and turned left down the parade route; I went in the other direction.

My mother, of course, had warned me about crowds: their fickle-mindedness and their capacity for small acts of violence. Stolen nickels, a hastily pinched rump. But it was surprisingly easy, I found, to make my way through them. I was small and quick, and not afraid to hustle. Before the parade, the streets surged with people, anticipatory and bored. They wanted distraction. And they were thrilled by the novelty of it all: up early on a weekend morning, sitting on the cold nubs of sidewalk, waiting for the spectacle to come rolling by. I watched their starry faces; and I found ways of tempting them: a delicately extended hand, a carefully raised eyebrow. Inviting, encouraging. My mother had been right: seduction was easy. It’s what we all depend on: other people’s enthusiasms, their inexhaustible desires.

“What were you thinking?!” My mother demanded afterward. “Leaving her out there alone?”

Ray stood with all of his weight pushed onto one leg, a hand pressed to his eyes against the sun. He looked, I thought, quite a lot like a movie star: a mild-mannered James Dean, or John Travolta. My Uncle Ray was always so easy to adore.

“Mac,” he told her. “There’s hundreds of people out there. It’s completely safe.”

“What would you know?” Mom snarled. “You’re not a woman.”

I was just back from the parade, paused at the side of the van, barely visible. The apron I wore was heavy now, keeping my center of gravity low around my hips. As I pushed past the van, it jangled mildly. “Mom!” I called. “I’m okay!”

“Oh, Theresa!” She came at me fierce, grabbing me around the middle and pulling me to her. “Are you all right?” Her face wore a shocked expression; but I was used to this kind of drama. It would, I knew, wear off quickly. “Oh baby, I’m so sorry,” she moaned. “It won’t happen again.”

“See now, Mac? The girl’s all right.” Ray scuffed the heel of his boot along the cement. But my mother was devoted to her brother; we all knew that there wasn’t a thing in the world that could have made her stop loving him.

Mom pulled away and scowled at Ray. I jammed a fist into the heaviest pocket, pulling up a fistful of quarters. “Mom,” I nodded. “Here.”

She stared. “What’s this?”

“Her money, Mac.”

Mom’s gaze flickered back to Ray. “Did you give this to her?”

My uncle shook his head. “Naw, Mac. That’s Theresa’s money. What she made today.”

I had done something with myself: something brave and successful that not even my mother could believe.

Then Mom yanked open my front apron pocket, throwing me back onto my heels for a moment, as she stared down into it. Her voice was still breathy with irritation: “Well.”

She let go, and I righted myself. My whole body felt tired and good. I had done something with myself: something brave and successful that not even my mother could believe.

“I don’t know, Theresa. That’s an awful lot of money.”

Ray laughed. “I’m telling you, Mac. Theresa’s sharp. People like a pretty, young thing like her.”

Mom looked at him ruefully. “You be careful, Ray. She’s not yours; she’s mine.”

Once I’d learned what I could do, Mom couldn’t stop me from doing it again. But she could keep me wary; the world was still a frightening place.

“You’ve got to be careful, Theresa. Alone out there in the street like that. Anything could have happened.”

“But nothing did.”

“It could have, Theresa. That’s the point. You have to watch out. Things can always happen.” What my mother was afraid of — despite all of her wild, uncareful living — I was never quite certain of. “You just don’t always know who you can trust.”

We were lying on the ground, heads tilted upward. Nights between parades, we often slept at campgrounds or in state parks. Weather permitting, my mother ignored the tent. She preferred waking up with the sun directly on her face, just like they’d done between circus shows, back when she was a girl: “Me and my Aunt Della used to sleep outside on nights like these.” My brothers shared another campsite a few yards away. I could hear their low giggles; and occasionally the long, thin beam of their flashlight flooded past us. We were in Lassen National Forest that night, on our way to Susanville the following day. There was a smell of pine trees and dust. Mid-summer. We were unprotected, but I wasn’t particularly worried, because my mother was there. The dangers she talked about were always someplace else.

“It’s hard being a mother.” She squeezed my hand, as though this confession should have made me feel closer to her. “It’s not for the faint of heart.”

I rolled my head and looked over at my mother, her sharp nose tilted up toward the night sky. “I have a strong heart.”

She squeezed again, her hand wrapped comfortably around mine. “Oh baby, you’re so sweet. Of course you do. You’re very big-hearted. Sometimes, you remind me so much of Aunt Della.”

There were holes left in the sky, in the spaces between trees. Sage, and salamanders shifting over rocks…. Mom was lying next to me. I breathed: despite it all, this was a place I loved.

But I knew about Della: the great-aunt I’d never met. Well-intentioned and foolish, she’d devoted herself to a charming young man who had left her to die in childbirth. “No,” I said. “I mean I’m strong.”

“Sure, Baby,” she said, and went back to star-gazing. There were holes left in the sky, in the spaces between trees. Sage, and salamanders shifting over rocks. The air was still hot, even at night. My skin smelled of insect repellent and cheap soap. Mom was lying next to me. I breathed: despite it all, this was a place I loved.

“You know, I had a husband before your father.” She said this without introduction or apology. But I had not known that; it made me shudder. Just when I thought I understood her, my mother’s history would shift again, opening into a whole new set of tragedies and circumstances — making me question everything that had come before.

“He died — killed himself, actually. Though I wasn’t planning on staying married to him, anyway. A real animal,” she nodded, knowingly. “Once he got on the bottle.”

I laid there, holding my body as still as I could, to keep that information from touching me.

“He was a sad man, and I didn’t love him. He didn’t love himself, either. That was a problem,” she sighed. “It’s important for a person to love himself. You shouldn’t forget that, Theresa.”

I shook my head against the dirt. I could feel a tightness against the back of my skull. I wouldn’t. I would not forget.

My mother sighed. “Sometimes you just have to do things. In those days, I would have done anything to keep Ray with me,” she told me, yanking back up the memory of her early heroism in the wake of their parents’ deaths when Ray was still a boy. “Anything,” she swore again. “That’s the kind of person I am.” Then she turned toward me: “You should know that about me, Baby.”

But I didn’t want to know this — not any of it. My mother’s life was too complicated; it seemed we would never be finished with it.

“It’s not easy raising somebody. I really didn’t think I’d do it again. Not even after I married your father.”

I wished she would stop. It seemed there must be some way of making her stop; but I didn’t know what it was.

My mother had always been stronger than me. She’d had a bigger life; she had survived more. Long after I fell asleep, she would still be there, watching the skies.

“Life just doesn’t turn out the way you think.” Her hand came loose, sliding off of mine. She got quiet for a moment. But I knew that we weren’t finished: “Why’d you do it, then?”

Mom shrugged her shoulders against the blanket. “You find out what you’re capable of.”

I stared upward. My mother had always been stronger than me. She’d had a bigger life; she had survived more. Long after I fell asleep, she would still be there, watching the skies. Counting stars or histories. She was capable of so much — that was the problem.

Across camp, we heard the slow giggle of my brothers in their endless affinity. A flashlight jiggled staccato across the neighboring campers’ truck. My mother clasped my hand again — to claim me, to remind me of how close we were. The wind pushed clouds above the trees; I watched the holes above us fill up with night. My mother’s touch was dewy and warm, but I pulled my fingers into themselves instead, shoving them under the flesh at my hip. You don’t know me, I thought, lying there in the near dark. Giddy crowds and stick balloons, anxious mothers and unloved husbands. By then, I decided, I had learned a few tricks about the world: what people need, and the price they’re willing to pay for it. You have no idea, Mother — my fingers loosened, climbing slowly into a pine-scented sleep — the multitude of things I would do in my life. What all I might still be able to do.