Chapter One

Let me show you the house of my childhood, a gray house, oyster gray with white trim, sitting on the intersection of Treadwell and Clifford streets in Hamden, Connecticut, neither grand nor mean, just a solid-looking house with a small backyard, a one-car garage with an orange basketball hoop set above the doors, and tiger lilies languid along the driveway. In the backyard, there's a red-and-green jungle gym and swing set that my parents bought at Sears and my father put together himself, kneeling down in the grass in his shirtsleeves, the instructions spread out in front of him, holding a metal rod in each hand, sweat pouring from his brow.

The front yard is moon-shaped and open to the street, giving it a wild and friendly feeling like you might get running down a hill or holding your arms out to someone else running down. On the right side of the house, there's a sunporch with a red-and-green striped awning, a fence and a privet hedge. Between the fence and the hedge, a dirt path has been worn through by my brothers, sisters and me, a shortcut, a children's way to go. The adults must plod up the driveway. There, our blue station wagon is parked under the basketball net.

A white picket fence runs between our house and the house of the family next door, the Wrights, who have a girl named Terry who is my age-eight on the day I'm picturing-and a tomboy. Terry takes trumpet lessons and so does my older brother Bill, and sometimes they take their trumpets and play out of the attic windows to each other, leaning out over the driveway below.

Terry also takes dance classes with me at Miss Marie's Dance Studio on Whitney Avenue. I