It happens, generally, when the sun is out, when the sky is at its bluest, when my heart is settled and I’m focusing on my life with Susan, on writing and cooking, on our dogs and the garden, on the travel that we’re planning, and on the future. Years ago, it wasn’t specifically limited to Sunday afternoons, although it felt that way: my parents and I would pile into my father’s Oldsmobile and drive out to Brooklyn on the BQE, over the Kosciuszco Bridge and past the live gas stack whose live flame terrorized me, and we’d continue east, down the long, tree-lined Ocean Parkway to my grandparents’ building and, there, once we parked and my father turned the ignition off, my mother would refuse to get out of the car. Suddenly, with the sun shining and me daydreaming in the backseat, and my father whistling along with Chopin on WQXR, we’d park, he’d unbuckle his seatbelt, and she’d stare straight ahead and that was it; I’m not getting out of the car.
