A long lock of dark hair falls across her eyes and only her mouth is visible, a pouty smear that’s sullen or seductive, it’s hard to tell. My mother doesn’t like the painting—our uncertain budget has curtailed her home decorating impulses—but it’s a gift from one of my dad’s clients, a payment, and he says it’s art. My father’s law practice is, as my mother likes to say, going down the tubes. It’s feast or famine. From time to time the electricity at our house is shut off. My grandfather, a stern man who worked as a banker during the Depression—traveling from bank to bank, looking at balance statements, and determining whether or not an institution should remain open—swoops in to oversee my dad’s office. He and my grandmother Claire sell their home, drive west, and move into an apartment in Arvada. Grandma Claire is a retired schoolteacher. She dotes on my father, her only child, and now she dotes on us kids. She wears round, dark-rimmed glasses that make her look intellectual despite her flowery dresses and plump arms.
