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dragged me along as assistant—she said the work would do me good.
     
     
    AUNTIE CAROL WAS my father’s older sister and was an awesome no-nonsense presence—a powerhouse of full-bodied womanhood with thick thighs and a wide behind. Her breasts were so huge, they were like lampshades under her sweater. When she walked, her steps made the earth move and her voice was a booming drum that rattled the bones.
    Auntie Carol was also considered a bit of a mystic. She read Tarot cards and palms. My cousins said she could see the future.
    The woman scared me to death.
     
     
    DURING OUR DAY of scrubbing and sorting, the apartment was bleached free of our smells, and our clothes, toys, and household goods were sorted into storage boxes. While we worked, Auntie Carol talked. She said my father wanted to put the past in the past and move on with his life. She said it was good he had a healthy
woman to love. And she said that Janet had been sick for all of their marriage—which had taken a toll on him.
    “He deserves a little happiness,” I remember her saying, as if my father had been very unhappy before.
     
     
    WHEN THE JOB was done and it was time to go back to the divorcéelandlord-fiancée’s house, Auntie Carol gave me a few treasures: Bud and Janet’s wedding album, Janet’s wedding ring, and a necklace of perfectly matched freshwater pearls.
    I did not want these things. I told Auntie Carol to give the stuff to Bryan. “He’s her son,” I added.
    In the old days, Auntie Carol would have swatted my butt and pressed my willful face into a corner but on that day, she seemed almost impressed.
    “Look,” she said, “if I wanted to give these things to Bryan, I would have. I am giving them to you because you are the daughter.”
    I eyed her with a look that said I wasn’t the daughter and she knew it. Again, Auntie Carol paused. She must have realized that I knew I was adopted.
    She cleared her throat and pulled herself up.
    “You listen to me little girl. You are the daughter,” she said, “and it’s your job to remember your mother.”
    To remember was an intriguing and even tantalizing assignment. I thought, I can do that! I can remember .
    Auntie Carol, without the benefit of Tarot or palm, had predicted my future.

     
     
    MY FATHER’S NEW wife had a name. I won’t write it here. Nor will I write the names of her children.
    The stepmother I will call Deb, and her kids I will call Christopher, Veronica, and Kendall. I’ll say Veronica and Kendall were twins, just a few days older than me and were like wild alley cats—red hair and freckles everywhere.
    I’ll say Christopher was fourteen years old with curly blond hair and was skinny and pale, as if he had been sick.
    Deb was like every evil stepmother in every fairytale I have ever read. She was skinny with wide bony hips and a flat, unimpressive chest. Her face was long and narrow too. She was downright unattractive but that’s not how other people remembered her.
    I have been told she was pretty and quite smart.
    At eight, I didn’t see it. I considered Deb to be a major step down.
    My mother had been Jackie Kennedy.
    Deb was a cross between a haggard Jane Fonda and perhaps an older version of Jennifer Beals in Flashdance —headbands, leg warmers, and big sweatshirts that hung below her hips.
    My mother had been patient, gentle, and kind. I don’t remember her ever being angry or cruel—especially to a child.
    Deb seemed to go out of her way to be cruel, which was likely the result of a distressing childhood of her own, but when I was eight years old I wasn’t considering the woman’s psychological profile. That wasn’t my job.
    My father’s state of mind was my primary concern and the only explanation I could find was one I had borrowed from the fairytale
Snow White . That father, the king, had lost his beloved queen and in a mind-bending state of ruinous grief, he married the evil stepmother. I concluded that my own father, in the same