“Pastor Jim’s car is at his house, honey.”
She laughed so hard she had to stop the car. Then I started laughing too. We sat there in the church parking lot laughing until we cried.
She passed her test on the first try. She called me from the DMV, screaming. “I did it! Laura, I did
it! I didn’t hit anything!”
That’s what she called me. Laura. When she was little, it was Mama Laura. She came up with it herself when she was seven. She said she couldn’t call me just Mama, because she already had one of
those somewhere, but she didn’t want to call me just Laura either, because that was what the mailman called me.
So, Mama Laura.
When she turned thirteen, she dropped the “Mama.” It was just Laura after that. I told myself it didn’t matter. It was just a name. Teenagers do that.
