Page 13 of Into the Mountains
I hadn’t gotten that far. My eyes dart down under the profile picture to where my mom has two sentences.
Charlotte, 19
Looking for someone fun. Show me the ropes of dating, while also being a gentleman.
“Mom, really? This looks like it was written by someone in their forties!” She just shrugs her shoulders and laughs it off.
“News flash, honey, Iamin my forties. And like I said, I wasn’t sure what to put.”
“You could have put literally anything else besides, “show me the ropes of dating.””
“Well, you’ve never dated!”
“I know, but the whole world doesn’t need to also know that.” I laugh as I select the short section of text and delete it. I type out one sentence in its place.
There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something.
I leave the rest of the quote off and face the screen toward my mom, knowing she will understand. Sure enough, a smile slowly spreads across her face. It’s a story we both know well. One we’ve read more than I can remember and in all the formats. Physical copy, audiobook, ebook; any version we could get our hands on, it’s been read and listened to. The copy I have in my bag is worn from years of turning the pages over and over. I have another one I used for annotations, colored tabs sticking out at various places marking different passages.
“One of the greatest stories.”
“One of the classics,” I agree.
“Exactly how many times have you two readTheHobbitcombined?” Dad chimes in.
We laugh instead of answering his question, because we know neither of us can answer that accurately. “At this point, I’ve read it at least three times with your mom listening to the audiobook on speaker when she’s cleaning. But only when she has it at a slower speed. I can’t understand what he’s saying when she has it going fast.”
She shrugs. “Headphones hurt my ears so I just use a speaker. It’s easier and I can still hear it just fine and understand it at my “fast” speed.” She puts fast in air quotes.
“When you listen to anything more than 1.5x speed, it sounds like gibberish to me. My brain just can’t keep up with whatever he’s saying.”
“You get used to it.” Hell, I’ve gotten used to mine being at speeds higher than two and when I really focus, I can almost get to three. Recently, my headphones disconnected and the audiobook kept going. My roommate looked at me like I had grown an extra head or told her I was from outer space or something.
“Speaking of which, are you up for the movie or starting the book tonight?” We have a tradition of reading and listening toThe Hobbitand watchingTheLord of the Ringswhen I come to visit and before I left, it was whenever we could. Neither of us could get enough of the whole franchise.
“Did Gandalf trick Bilbo into hosting a party for the dwarves?” She giggles at her own reference.
“You two are the biggest nerds.”
“Hey, don’t even get us started on your secretStar Warsobsession.” Dad has always denied how much he absolutely lovesStar Wars, but we’ve both always known he’s actually just as obsessed with it as we are withThe Hobbit. I don’t know why he pretends otherwise. I think he grew up in a home that didn’t really encourage that side of his personality, which is why hedoesencourage it as much as he has with me.
He holds up his hands in silent surrender. “You two have fun.”
“You don’t want to watch with us?” I ask.
“Nah, I’ll let you have your girl time. We can catch up tomorrow.”
With a quick kiss on the top of my head and a swift one on the lips for my mom, he leaves the room.
We get up from the breakfast nook and start cleaning up. “I’ll do that,” Mom says, taking the dishes I grabbed out of my hands. “You go get the movie going.”
“Okay.” I let her take the dishes from me even though I really want to make her sit down and relax. But I’ve learned over theyears, that’s hard for moms to do. They’re always busy doing something and if they’re not busy, they look for something to get them busy. There’s always something.
The computer pings with a notification and Mom jumps. “Why are you so jumpy?” I have a sudden sinking feeling in my stomach. “What is it?”
“That’s the website sound.” She practically squeals, coming back to the nook and shimmying herself into it faster than I’ve ever seen her move.
“The website sound?”
