Is it important to consider why I want to write about my ex-boyfriend’s family? If my ex-boyfriend didn’t mind my writing about his family or if I could disguise them in such a way that my ex-boyfriend wouldn’t recognize his family, would I still want to write about them? Isn’t at least part of my interest in writing about his family the fact that I promised never to do so? Is going back on my word a measure of my immaturity? Will reading this to him assuage any guilt I may feel? I know it’s possible for some writers to create characters purely from imagination, but it feels unnecessary to fill the world with more fictional characters when there are so many characters who are not fictional and should be written about exactly for that reason, and because anything can be made-up, but the things that happen in real life—for example, the invasion of toads in a Chinese village right before the big earthquake, which, according to the inhabitants, was a sign of impending doom or, years ago, the spontaneous fainting spells of all the girls in an Egyptian school, the cause of which has never been discovered—interest me because these events are real, but this doesn’t solve my quandary about writing about my ex-boyfriend’s family which I, of course, could do under another name but that would be like turning the author into a fictional character—creating yet another fiction. His fear, of course, is that I will say something derogatory, something he wouldn’t want the world to know. Considering the number of readers who may stumble upon this story, however, using the phrase “the world,” is laughable. But I think he knows me well enough to imagine that in a certain smirky kind of mood I might write something he won’t like. Before I met his parents, I had only met the parents of one other boyfriend who wasn’t really a boyfriend but a man I hoped would be my boyfriend. I thought, erroneously, that because he’d invited me home for dinner to meet his parents I would soon get my wish. I was in Australia at the time. Later, I was informed that meeting his family was some sort of Australian thing. I’ve never been big on “family” the way my ex-boyfriend is, calling his mother and sisters often and making frequent visits “home,” especially now that his father is gone and his mother is alone in the house in the country. Will my ex mind if I say that I dreaded meeting his mother simply because she was his mother? I was pleasantly surprised, however, at how easy it was to talk to her, how she laughed a lot, giggled really, and made me feel right at home, which is something I never felt in my own family. Am I on the right trail? A trail my ex will approve? A trail away from forbidden territory. Away from barbed wire. Away from land mines. What if I mention the cobwebs? Will my ex take offense if I say that the first thing I noticed were cobwebs when I entered his parents’ house? If I tell you how shocked I was by the cobwebs, will he say that cobwebs are no big deal? And isn’t he right? After all, that room, though it was a large room (and would have been the living room in someone else’s house), was only used for storing old discarded furniture and decades of dusty flea market finds, reminding me (a little) of a man I used to know, a PhD, who spent his entire two million dollar inheritance on board games(!) that he stacked to the ceiling in his Manhattan apartment, leaving him no space to live. He did not have cobwebs, however. At least, I don’t recall any. I can feel the daggers aimed at me in the eyes of my ex at this point for mentioning, not only the cobwebs, but the clutter in the storage room which, in time, his mother sold in a series of yard sales. To be fair, I should say that several years after that first visit, I moved from the city to the country and now have cobwebs of my own. The other day, in fact, I watched a tiny spider trap a much larger ladybug while the spider dangled on a thread of light. Then, however, I couldn’t stop thinking about the cobwebs (which were nowhere else in the house) while his mother kept talking, giggling, about what I don’t remember, I only remember her smiling and friendly and nothing like the grim picture I had painted in my mind of a “mother.” She said that once she had found a snake in the bathroom, as though it was perfectly natural to find a snake in the house. Would I ever understand her? A mother wearing Bermuda shorts, a tee-shirt, hair cropped short, a mother who mowed the lawn and gardened and taught her son to play ball? A mother who wore sturdy shoes and hiked in the woods with her son and two daughters? A mother called Sally by her children? How about a father they called Ben? Why was it easier to understand a father called Ben? A father asleep in an easy chair in the living room which is the way I drew my own father once when I was twelve. Later, after my father’s suicide, my mother and I found a fortune in change that must have fallen out of his pants’ pockets over the years and lay buried until we looked beneath the cushion of that chair. Ben’s chair was beige. A beige naugahyde chair with wide arms that over time seemed to consume Ben, who had once been tall and husky. He seemed to slowly liquefy into that slick plasticity. Is it wrong to say Ben was sick? Is sickness something to hide? Something to be ashamed of? Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned his illness before saying that I felt instantly connected to him, maybe because he and my ex looked so much alike, and although his father was nearly eighty, I found him as attractive as I found his son, maybe even more so. Will my ex be shocked by this? I liked the slow way his father spoke, carefully considering each word before it left his lips. Ben, my ex-boyfriend’s father, who had been an architect, a thinking man, who also drew and painted. Ben, whose large sable brush I still use. By the time he was blind, had he forgotten or lost interest in dictating his life story into a tape recorder? A project I had encouraged him to start—while he still could. Music was Ben’s last frontier. He played a recorder and sang old songs, accompanied by my ex on guitar. The whole family was musical. Sometimes they would sit in a circle, play instruments, and sing. Now that I’ve said the word “family” again, can I include my ex boyfriend’s sisters without giving away family secrets? Can I say his father’s illness was only one family tragedy? Doesn’t every family have one or more tragedies? In the framed family portrait hanging in the hall, taken nearly thirty years ago and slightly faded by the sun, I think I see a hint of tragedy in their faces. Or is it only because I know? Does a tragedy ever end? Once my ex gave a ukulele to one of his sisters. But I no longer remember which one. Was it the sister who, every week, would sit for hours by the kitchen window, slowly, carefully copying with colored markers pictures from Sally’s mail order catalogs? Or the secretive one who lives up north in a subzero climate, who cuts her mother’s hair when she comes to visit but lets her own hair grow waist-long? For the sake of the story, have I said too little about his sisters? About the tragedy? Or have I already revealed too much? Am I bringing up past pain? Digging my finger in wounds that will never heal? Am I running the risk of damaging—or worse, ruining—my close friendship with my ex? Am I creating yet another tragedy? A tragedy I could easily avoid by respecting his wishes? Is tragedy too strong a word to use? Am I being melodramatic? Isn’t tragedy the word we use for something that was never supposed to happen? Something that divides life into before and after? When tragedy strikes, don’t we still try to believe it didn’t happen? Say it’s a dream? A nightmare from which we will escape? When we don’t escape, what then? What does my ex do? He plays guitar and sings in a group. He spends an evening a week at a chess club. He dates a poet in Astoria. He walks on a beach in Long Island. He drinks a little vodka before bed. He takes the sister who doesn’t get out much to the mall. He helps his mother around the house. His mother prays, goes to church. It helps, she says.