That answers a few questions, for Ned. He knows better than to ask how, though he feels a brief pang of curiosity (followed, naturally, by a wake of brief but intense self-loathing). It seems strange to him that Ginsberg wouldn't know the exact date when she died, but then, maybe his father doesn't like to talk about it.
"She must've been, to have you." A line which would probably come out flirtatious, in a different situation, with a different person. Ned just states it in the manner of a logical fact. He thinks he can see why the younger Ginsberg fixated on this picture. She doesn't look unlike him, and there's a quirk to her expression that reminds him of Ginsberg, a little. He wonders if he unconsciously modeled it off the painting, or if it is a coincidence.
He can see why Ginsberg would think of her as a person who doesn't even exist, if he remembers nothing about her, if their lives only overlapped for a few months and he doesn't even know something as basic as when she died. Ned wonders which is worse - to have never known a mother, or to know one briefly and lose her.
And since Ginsberg has shared this thing with him, Ned feels like he ought to reciprocate. He doesn't have to, he knows. But he might as well trade the skeletal framework of the story. It's much less intimate than what Ginsberg's done, by showing him this picture, by letting Ned into his thoughts like that.
"Mine... died when I was nine." There's an almost imperceptible hesitation as he says it. It's easy enough by now to recite the rote fact of it. He's had to do it often enough, for enough crass and pushy questioners, that he can get it ought without undue struggle.
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"She must've been, to have you." A line which would probably come out flirtatious, in a different situation, with a different person. Ned just states it in the manner of a logical fact. He thinks he can see why the younger Ginsberg fixated on this picture. She doesn't look unlike him, and there's a quirk to her expression that reminds him of Ginsberg, a little. He wonders if he unconsciously modeled it off the painting, or if it is a coincidence.
He can see why Ginsberg would think of her as a person who doesn't even exist, if he remembers nothing about her, if their lives only overlapped for a few months and he doesn't even know something as basic as when she died. Ned wonders which is worse - to have never known a mother, or to know one briefly and lose her.
And since Ginsberg has shared this thing with him, Ned feels like he ought to reciprocate. He doesn't have to, he knows. But he might as well trade the skeletal framework of the story. It's much less intimate than what Ginsberg's done, by showing him this picture, by letting Ned into his thoughts like that.
"Mine... died when I was nine." There's an almost imperceptible hesitation as he says it. It's easy enough by now to recite the rote fact of it. He's had to do it often enough, for enough crass and pushy questioners, that he can get it ought without undue struggle.