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Bad Genes

J has always been a very perseverant little person. Last evening she finally managed to turn cartwheels on the couch after three months of concerted effort. I celebrated her success with her even as I realize her athletic career (beyond reasonable doubt) is ab initio void.

I spent the school years reading under the shade of a tree as my friends sweated it out on the basketball court. R's (my ex) solitary claim to sporting fame was that he played a mean game of chess. J's tenaciousness can't possibly overcome the odds of such terrible genes.

My mother wrote me off at seven when I straggled to the finish line twenty minutes after prizes were given away to the winner and runners-up of the lemon-and-spoon race. She expended no further energies on my athletic ambitions and instead made me a junior member of the local library. She was wise to cut her losses early.

In the life of every mother there comes to pass such moments of epiphany.

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