She was all bundled up in her black wool coat, a pale-pink scarf over her head and wrapped around her neck; she was wearing her favorite shoes, the black suede wedges with ankle straps. I can see her there at the top of those steep stairs, her hand on the banister. In my memory, it is as if she pauses, like someone stopping to look both ways before crossing the street. I was there in my room; my father was seated by the radio in the living room, I assume listening to the news. It was 1942, so there was a lot of news, and he was often there, eyes closed as he listened.

My mother had two different fragrances she wore: Tabu for the average day, and then on special occasions, Pavlova, a fragrance named for the great dancer. “From Paris,” she whispered, and smiled and then showed me the tiny bottle, doll-sized, that she pressed against each slender wrist. She smelled wonderful (perfume, cigarettes, spearmint gum), and I recall thinking she looked like so many of the movie stars she admired and talked about as if they were friends of hers: Rita Hayworth and Jane Wyman and Joan Fontaine and Lana Turner. She loved going to the movies and often went on her own, leaving the little ticket stubs in the pockets of her coat and at the bottom of her many purses, with loose tobacco bits and gum wrappers.

It is important I remember this. No matter the weather or whatever else is going on in life, it is important I stop and remember how it all started with the strike of a single match. I stare at the second hand on my watch while I imagine and then try not to imagine: one minute, two, a tiny flame in that dark corner of the lounge, catching and spreading, fabric and wood, walls and ceiling, fake palm trees, starry sky, hundreds of people there to have fun.

November 28, 1994