In spite of this she quickly grew to love him. He was different from any adult she’d ever known. In many ways he was a child—he had few rules for himself, and even fewer for her. That and their natural curiosity made them great friends.

That’s what he was, her friend, which is why she never called him “Uncle.” He would allow her to smoke at jazz clubs if she stayed with him for the second set. And they would go to museums on Sundays, sometimes walking over the Brooklyn Bridge hand in hand, counting cars and reciting whole scenes from westerns.

She would write to her father, but he never replied. When she got older, she began to wonder if he could read or write. Maybe he wanted to reply but couldn’t. But by then it didn’t matter. She had never really known him, so there was little for her to miss. Her mother, Syd told her, had died in her sleep. She didn’t know the truth till she was grown.

Every Friday before he went drinking, Syd would bring her a book and take her for a banana split or cheesecake at Junior’s. They would sit in their special booth and talk about whatever was on her mind, which was usually something about the girls who picked on her because she was different. They’re just jealous, he would say to her, because they don’t have good hair like you. Which would make her happy because she did have the longest hair in school, even if she didn’t know how to manage it.

On the way home, as they walked along Fulton, they would listen to his pocket radio and sing along with the hit parade. That’s the best way to lose an accent, he used to say. Good singers have good diction—my cousin Billy told me that.

As soon as they got in he would make her take a bath, wait until she settled herself, then ask her to read to him from the latest book he’d bought her. At first he would squat on the floor beside her, with his chin on the edge of the bed, then gradually, while smiling and praising her, he would lie down beside her and stroke her face and tell her how nice she looked. He knew, he would say—he could tell these things, he added—that she would grow up to be a TV star like the colored girl on Star Trek.

He would call her beautiful. And when she said that she was ugly, that she was too skinny to be pretty, he would run his hand under her nightie and say, “But right here fat … and right there fat … and behind here fat … and in the middle here … lemme check it again … is so fat. Can I kiss it?”

If she said no he would make funny faces and she would indulge him. Not just because it thrilled her—it felt dangerously good, like jiggling a shaky tooth—but because in the hospital no one had wanted to touch her. In school no one wanted to be her friend—she spoke funny and dressed funny and her hair was frizzy, and she couldn’t play sports because she was always out of breath.