I would remember my mother as she stood at the edge of the river overlooking the city, the soft light from the street lamp smoothing the lines of her face. I would recall the laughter of my father, the merry vitality of the crowd, and the Dodger players who returned our adoration with a devotion of their own. My life had been held fast to a web of familiar places and familiar people—my family, my block, my church, my team, my town, my country. They were part of the way I defined myself. I was not only Doris Helen Kearns, but a Catholic, a resident of Southard Avenue, a Dodger fan, a Rockville Centre girl. Everything was wonderfully in order. But things would soon change, and when they did, I, too, would be different. For as long as I could remember, our family had been on intimate terms with every neighbor on our block. I knew the layout of our neighbors’ houses as well as I knew my own. So familiar were the print sofas in Elaine’s living room, the texture and smell of the stuffed chairs in the Lubars’ sun porch, the thick rugs in the playroom at the Greenes’, the round kitchen table at the Rusts’, that I could have maneuvered my way in the dark through every house on our block.
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