I have saved some things I didn’t want to save, and I’m not even sure why I did that except perhaps to remind myself what I am capable of being and doing. They remind me of times I never want to relive. Like finding that note left under my windshield wiper that time. “Leave Me Alone!” it said, among other things. You were both in your 20s, and I still look back and think that the two of you must have noticed the changes. Your father and I were like total strangers. Or were you both so caught up in all the events of your own lives (and there were many!) that you didn’t even notice? I’ve often wondered if I would’ve been better off in the bliss of ignorance, emotionally unaware and somehow paralyzed, and I can’t help but wonder if people are really unaware or if they are in denial, slapping on a pair of blinders and a muzzle, plowing the same old row until the old ox returns to the yoke, or doesn’t.

A lot of women have done that, I guess, and men, too, maybe. Jeff, your first wife, Anna, did that, right? She waited, hoping, though I don’t see that it helped her, and I am sorry. And, what’s more, you’re lucky she’s not one of those vindictive ones; I have sometimes thought she should have been, and then I remember that I am your mother. But I really did like her. I loved her. She and I liked many of the same things, unless she was just pretending; we both loved spending long hours at the aquarium, and we also loved going to all the crafty places, just wandering and touching yarns and beads and stencils and glue guns. And she made that wonderful dessert with all the layers in what looked like a giant brandy snifter or goldfish bowl, I forget what you call it, begins with a “t.” She left the special bowl here one Christmas, and I never sent it back to her. I wanted to, and you kept telling me to wait, not to interfere. “Don’t bring up one more goddamned thing to argue about,” you said.

So eventually, I bought one of those fish, the fancy Dr. Seuss–looking thing (a red one), to live in the bowl, because I doubted I was ever going to make a trifle. That’s the name, and how ironic is that? Trifle. And add to it that those betta fish are creatures that just can’t do well with a partner. Even if they see themselves in a reflection, they bristle up, ready for combat. “Don’t trifle with me!” that fish said. That was my joke, and one your father actually thought was funny.