My mother?s lover bought me gifts: a cowboy girl outfit with a red satin skirt and fringe on my sleeves, silver guns in a white holster that hung on my hips, low and just right. I needed the boots, but didn?t want to ask for too much. He knew what I liked. I wanted to be Suzie Starr. My parents brought me to the state fair in Allentown to see her perform, and she looked right at me, smiled, signed a glossy photograph that I hung on over my bed.

I went with my mother to see Ralph when my father was working in his studio writing music and needed a quiet house. He?d spend days in there. He could?ve been in China. We weren?t allowed to interrupt except to tell him dinner was ready. My mother brought him sandwiches and coffee at noon and left them by the door. I wore socks and swished around the hardwood floors, kept my noises soft.

Ralph lived in a mansion with a lawn in the back as big as a park. There was a tree house with shag carpeting. He had a son my age named Roger and we sat up in it and watched TV, laughed as loud as we wanted at the funny parts. I?ve known two Rogers in my life and I married the second one.

I liked Ralph for making my mother smile, for walking her around his gardens because she knew so much about flowers. He planted a bed of yellow freesia for her. And I liked the presents. I would mention something ? an Easy Bake Oven, a pair of silver skates with red leather straps ? and Ralph would buy these things for me without a special occasion.

From the tree house I saw them in the kitchen, my mother?s head tilted toward Ralph, listening, and him standing closer than just a friend. I was seven, old enough to know he made her feel different than my dad, and I expected that I would have a Ralph when I got older, and not marry a man who disappeared into his own house. My blouses would be bright silk, and I?d wear a gardenia in my hair until I got home. Then I?d press the flower into the book about gardening beside my bed that my husband would not open.