Ben's relationship with his mother was like a cakewalk- sweet,
slippery, perched on the edge of the rim, plumped with air and full of
flavor.
Mother was cinnamon and red wine and Midwestern solid. With
Ben she was forgiving and exacting, encouraging and demanding. She
was all about him and his father. Her tight spirtual journey into her husband's Judaism had made her more confident, more calm and more admired despite the issues she's endured as an African-American woman scientist.
In the end, Ben and his parents were one laboratory that
had studied together and published their findings about the nature of
the world with each other at the dinner table, night after night.