I was three or four, and Christmas was coming. Cards were sent, and received. I liked the way mail came then, with a mailman walking through the Wisconsin snow, house to house, dropping cards into a slot where they landed, in a pile, in the front hall closet. I could hear the thump and watch the mailman and often was the first to get the mail.

A card came from my great-Aunt’s house. I tore open the envelope and was confused, because she had sent us the same card we sent her. When I showed the card to my grandmother, I got a reprimand for tearing open the envelope, which could have been re-used: the card we sent had been returned to us, with the address written slightly wrong.

Another card came back, too, but someone else got the mail that day, so all I saw was a bit of the card as I peered over a shoulder during the confused discussion that followed: The card to my father had been returned, addressee moved, no forwarding address.

Years later, I would find the divorce papers that my mother filed the following year, her versus him, address unknown.

Mr. Faraway asks a question, and here is the answer: It’s a long story.

At the very, very beginning, my parents met. My Mother was 30 years old, one of four daughters of a not-well-off, unhappily married small-town Wisconsin couple. My Father was 22 years old, the only son of a not-well-off, unhappily married Jewish couple, who emigrated to South Africa from Latvia just ahead of the Holocaust that swept away the families they left behind.

They met on a kibbutz in Israel, where I was conceived, and then went to New York City, where I was born.

We were not well off, either, and the part of the marriage where we all lived together did not last long: By the time I was a year old, there were no more photographs of my father. By the age of 18 months, there are photos of me in Wisconsin, on my grandparents’ porch. There are a few photos of me in New York, and then they stop, and we are in Wisconsin again, at my grandparents’ house. I’m pretty sure we occupied the upstairs bedroom, though I have some memories of sleeping on a pull-out sofa. There were lots of cousins and aunts, and a dog that I played with, a miniature schnauzer with floppy, uncut ears.

There was a kitten, too, about whom I remember one thing: I decided to take her outside to get some air one day, and she got loose and climbed up a tree. I was told she ran away, and that may be true, but in any case I never saw her again.