For fun, I tried to draw out a memory with pencil and paper, the way a sliver of cheese might draw out a skittish mouse. The first image that came was of my grandparents’ house when the roses broke through the window screens and bloomed the day my grandfather died. The crisp details of the day have stayed with me, I believe, because I was old enough to remember well.

The second image that appeared astonished me: There I was, a little girl, standing in the center of my grandparents house, not the one above, in California, but the first house, in Ozone Park, Queens. I was wearing the kind of serious little dress my mother liked to dress me in. It was 1959. I was five. On this day, my father, my real father, had come to visit.

My mother married at 18. Ten years later, I came along, and she divorced. She said she couldn’t bear to raise me in the unhappy home she had come to accept as her lot in life. My mom and I, and our dog, Blackie, moved in with my grandparents who, I later learned, lived just downstairs. This was the house where my mother and her brothers had been children. My youngest uncle, in fact, had been born there, in the room next to the kitchen. In the cellar, there still hung bits of black and orange crepe paper from a long-ago Halloween party, and in the unused garage I rummaged through dust covered comic books and toys.

After work, my mother would tuck me into bed and sing Cole Porter’s “True Love”, the most painfully beautiful song I’d ever heard: “I give to you and you give to me...True love, true love/And on and on it will always be/ True love, true love/ For you and I have a guardian angel…” Though I spent much more time with my Grandmother, this song, at the end of the day, was about the two us, a working single parent and her only child, devoted to one another and altogether lucky.

I recall in greatest detail the interior room where my father visited me. This was the room where my grandpa listened to opera, smoked cigars, and read the Yiddish Forward. I would sit on his lap and pretend I could translate the news; I was never sure if he knew the English was printed on the reverse. On the wall were framed illustrations of Caribbean men at work collaged with real butterflies, eternally floating and iridescent. There was an intricately carved Chinese soapstone vase and other vases that my grandfather had transformed into lamps – one was enameled brass from the Middle East. On the mantle were two extraordinary cloisonné jars, a domed anniversary clock with moving parts and tiny chimes, and an object that, when plugged in, emitted a mysterious yellow light and depicted mallard ducks rising in unison from a marsh. My grandfather, a Kosher butcher, worked in Manhattan and had purchased many of these objects from push carts in the city. I must have pored over them endlessly as a child.

Most exotic of all, the room had a black and white television. Here my grandmother rooted for the Yankees and cursed the Dodgers in her Brooklyn accent. It was here that I was surprised, every day no less, that the Mickey Mouse Club was on and where I first heard the Nabisco announcer proclaim: “Out of the blue of the western sky comes Sky King.” It was here that for one week, when I was five, I watched the Million Dollar Movie, “Let’s Make Love”, with Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand at least a million times. The musical played twice a day during the week, and ran all day long on the weekend punctuated by The Syncopated Clock theme song. To this day, when I hear that music, I think of the movies. That week I memorized romantic dialogue and learned to sing, ironically, a breathy “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.”

The only memory I have of my real father is in this room. He bends on one knee and leans towards me. He places a hand on each of my arms. I see the scene in profile only – as though I am watching a performance. He asks, “Do you know who I am?” I think he expects me to throw my arms around him and say, “Daddy!” But I don’t. Instead a lie rises inside of me. With my mother and grandmother near, I answer sweetly, earnestly, “No. I’m sorry… I don’t know who you are. But...” My voice is small but sure when I deliver my blow, “…But I don’t think I like you, you’re not a nice man.”

I remember how it felt to say the last line; I feigned disgust. That’s all I remember. I don’t recall any response, or him standing up. I don’t recall my Grandmother or Mother opening the closet to fetch a coat or hat. I don’t recall lingering at the front door. Our moment was over. And he was gone. Forever. Final scene.

Over the years, friends have been surprised to learn my mother’s second husband isn’t my real father. When my mother remarried, my new father gave me a wedding ring and legally adopted me; I’ve never called him “my step-dad”. When I married, as a way of honoring him, I kept his name. Friends asked, “Haven’t you ever wanted to find your real father, know more about him?” For someone who is generally curious, my lack of curiosity about him is indeed a curious thing. I have no idea what he looks like - my mother cut him from every family photograph - and I’ve had no need to know. For years, I imagined this was because I had so many loving family members - my mother, my grandmother, my grandfather, and even a new father – that I had no need for anyone more. By conjuring the memory of my father’s visit, I’ve had unexpected insight into why I’ve never suffered from missing him.

I now have a context for the memory. My father must have visited me that one time, either right before or right after I had begun attending Kindergarten. I now realize that my going to school provoked unfathomable anxiety for my mother and grandmother. They must have worried about my being away from their protective, watchful eyes. Although I can’t say I understood at the time, I sensed they were afraid my father would steal me from them, and take me away forever.

Endlessly, they grilled me about how I would respond in a myriad of situations: “What would you do if a man came to your school and said that grandma or grandpa was sick and couldn’t pick you up, and he was helping us out by taking you home? Would you go with him?” What would you do if a man came up to you in the playground and asked you to help him find his puppy?” “And what if a woman came and said the same thing?” It’s clear to me they even feared he would enlist others. They must have wrenched their minds to imagine every possible deception he might try so they could preempt it by preparing me. I felt tormented. I tried to convince them that I wouldn’t go. I promised and promised, and couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t believe me. I felt powerless and pained to see my mother and grandmother so distraught.

When my father visited and coyly asked if I knew who he was, I instantly knew what to do. My lie was my way of saying bye bye, you’re not needed here – we’ve already forgotten you, see? - leave us in peace. I later learned my father had skipped visitations, never paid child support, and ultimately relinquished all rights to me in exchange for being let off the financial hook – all indications that he had abandoned me. But my five-year old mind saw it differently; I must have known, subliminally, that I was the reason he was still lingering in our lives. I lied to him knowing full well it would hurt. When he never returned, I claimed all responsibility for sending him away.

Before they married, my real father gave my mother a ruby ring. After the divorce, she wanted no part of it. While going through the family jewels one day, my mother gave it to me. It was a pretty ring, but I too put it away. Recently, I looked for it, polished it, and put it on. I’m relieved it doesn’t remind me of him but rather of the powerful little girl I’d forgotten, the one who did what she had to do and never looked back.