“The Stamford Advocate newspaper, October 18, 1968…Also, arrested was Joseph Bankowski, 41, of 144 Jefferson St. on charges of non-support.  The complaint was authorized by his wife and the warrant was signed by Judge Joseph J. Chernauskas.”

I am 9 years old.

Mom takes my sisters and me for a walk when we visit at Nanny’s.  This is unusual.  Mom doesn’t spend much time in the yard with us.  We’re shooed out the door to play as she visits Nanny, Aunt LaLa, and, as Mom says, “any Tom, Dick, or Harry,” that happens to stop by.  It’s okay with us.  We win the yard.

This time, with Mom, we walk along the grass that surrounds the outside of Uncle Pippi’s garden, along the gray-weathered, split rail log fence and the paved road.  The garden is on a plot of land like an island, surrounded on all sides by roads.  We follow Mom in a single row.

“Girls, your Daddy and I are getting divorced.  We won’t be living with him anymore,” said Mom.

I pull a piece of grass out by the roots and stick it between my teeth, instead of biting my fingernails for once.  It twitches nervously, shivers, in my mouth.  My fingernails, bitten to the quick as of late, sting from a medicine that garishly bleeds, a red stain circles each nail.

I wonder if Nanny and Aunt LaLa are watching us from the house across the street.  The thought bothers me.  I don’t like to be looked at or have attention turned to me.  I hate the idea that they might be looking at me, feeling sorry for me and my sisters.

“Are we going to live at Nanny’s?” asks Donna.  Will we live at this safe home in Darien?  She is relieved that we are finally leaving Daddy.

I don’t feel relief.  I don’t know what I feel.

“No, Donna, we’re moving to our own apartment,” said Mom.

It is as simple as that.

On the outside of the garden, I look in at the autumn decay of plant life as they wither and die, turn in for the winter, the last of their old life dusts down to the dirt of dear, sweet, Jesus’ earth.