His leather suitcase was never unpacked. His change, wallet, pocket-knife, handkerchief, and watch were on his bed table (they did not sleep together anymore). The soapy smell of his shaving kit sweetened the bathroom. I can hear him singing—something about “the wig-a-zees and the bees in the trees,” which made them both laugh, and sometimes he sang “Danny Boy.” I hear the names repeated of the people he knew. Ole Mac. Lew Herring. Always, Mr. Hoyt up in KC. Mr. Beeham, Mr. Hoyt’s boss. Kenny somebody.

Snapshots come into play. Tiny, square, scalloped black-and-whites. My mother bought a box Brownie and was bent to capture my father and me together: a bulky man in a dark overcoat, at first holding me, then “walking” me on the sidewalk in front of our house and the school yard; leaning over me in my toy car; later, me sitting in his car, smiling out the window wearing a baseball cap as if I’d just driven up. My mother’s shadow lives in these, her perfect silhouette holding the camera at her waist, peering into it. Often lying in my bed at night, I heard the bed-springs squeeze—squeeze-squeeze, squeeze-squeeze—their low voices, encased in the old intimacy and in the anticipation of his regular departures—Monday gone, Friday returned.

What could I possibly have thought about my life? Most of it, of course, would’ve been just sensation, not thoughts, and much of that just anticipation. Of him. And once he was home again, anticipation that the week’s events—its pleasures, displeasures, minor controversies, remonstrances, the complications my mother and I experienced—these would all be suspended or ignored. Or explained away quickly. It made for an atmosphere of agreed-upon concealment, of small dissemblings, of putting a good face on, of judging this to be more important than that, even when both mattered. These may have been the first of the lessons my father hoped to impart onto me, coping skills for issues that won’t iron out yet need to be dealt with, and for which explanations must be available. If these were not the intended lessons, they were the ones I learned. My father’s job was hard. He was delicate (probably he was by then). She would not risk distressing him. I was her ally, like it or not.

The grandparents played their part—at least her family did.

They were now established in Little Rock—Bennie and Essie. They ran a big hotel—the Marion. They had more money, more time. Ben Shelley kept blooded bird dogs in the hotel basement, drove a red Buick “Super.” A four-holer. Was a sport.