Three Things

If things happen in threes then a missing car muffler, COVID, and a broken water pipe are the three things this month. But it's more than three. And today the street is being cut up with a huge circular saw which reminds me of the magician who slices a woman in half. The cement and asphalt is being cut and the snow is melting off of the roof in huge chunks, frightening my dog when it smashes onto the lower flat roof.

Today I am making orange cranberry biscotti, improvising while listening to opera. I used to insist I was adopted because I love both opera and cabbage and just where did I get that from? But then I saw that my unusual toes were shaped exactly like my mother's so I believed her, finally.

I still felt like I must have been adopted, dropped off at the door. It would've been better to have been dropped off at the fire station. "Your father wanted you aborted and I was suicidal while pregnant with you!" That's the stuff a daughter likes to hear.

And when I met my biological father he served me a martini at his apartment in Yonkers. His 3rd wife,  Liz, was away in Marblehead renovating an old house with her sister. I was 15. All I remember is placing my plate on the carpet under the round glass dining-room table, feeding my supper to his collie named Shadow. I was so drunk from that martini. He drove me home in his red Karmann Ghia that had a rotted floor and a green leaf stuck on the windshield for an inspection sticker. My mother and step-father had already gone to bed. The next day they questioned me. All they cared about was that I didn't like him better. Narcissism was a goo dripping down the walls of the castle with giant ego bubbles drifting through the cold corridors. I was planning my escape every minute of every day. This was 1976.