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evening. But I didn’t have a chance, because she called me first.
    My father was a widower—my mother died in a car accident when I was in my last year of high school. The night Michaela called, my father was out taking inventory at the furniture store, as he did twice a year. It was something I had helped with throughout high school, but when I reached university my father insisted that I stay home and study. Usually I insisted, and ended up helping out for a few hours at the end of the day. But that evening I was at home, working on a paper evaluating stress measurement in steel railroad trestles, an area in which I eventually specialized. When the phone rang, the last person I expected to find on the other end of the line was Michaela.
    “Hello?”
    “Lenny, this is Michaela. Michaela Davidson.”
    “Michaela,” I said, rising from my chair at the kitchen table. “I’m so relieved to hear your voice,” I said. “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine,” she said. “I wanted to thank you for yesterday, and to apologize for imposing. I hope you didn’t mind the way I asked for your help.”
    “Not at all,” I protested. “You didn’t have much choice.”
    “I suppose I didn’t.” She paused, and for an awkward moment we listened to each other breathing.
    “Did they treat you with respect?”
    “Respect?” She laughed. “That’s the last thing I expected from them. They’re bullies. My father came down to the police station as soon as you called the house. They only kept me in a cell for a few hours.”
    “They put you in a cell?” I said, feeling more confusion than anger. “Like a common criminal? For what—writing an editorial in the school paper?”
    “Don’t sound so shocked, Lenny. Where have you been? It’s happening all over the country, and this is just the beginning.”
    “But on university grounds? To students? Women? It’s madness. Where was the university administration?”
    “Scared into silence, like the rest of the country,” she said. “Did you read the editorial that got me arrested?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    “What did you think of it?”
    I wondered whether to be truthful, or to simply praise her, and quickly decided that this—and she—were too important to be glossed over.
    “I thought it was well written,” I said, gathering my thoughts.
    “We both know I’m not asking about the writing.”
    “It was good, Michaela. You interviewed people about to be thrown out of their homes, and that put a human face on the problem. Great interviews, by the way. No one could question the intentions of the writer, or her courage.” I paused. “But I’m not sure the editorial will achieve anything, other than making you some dangerous enemies.”
    There was silence on the other end, which I took as a sure sign that she was displeased with my response. But I underestimated her tenacity and determination to get it right, and to get what she wanted.
    “Will you be at the university tomorrow?” she asked.
    “In the afternoon,” I answered. “How about you?”
    “I’ll be in the newspaper office after three,” she said. “Will you meet me there?”
    “Wait for me,” I said. “I’ll come by when my classes are over.”

    I was in the last year of my engineering degree; your mother was just beginning her third year in the school of music. We were an unlikely match. In my graduating class photograph I stand in the back row, tall and serious. Looking today at that young man, I see long, smooth cheeks, deep-set eyes, and what looks like a wide, easy smile, and nothing of the reticence I felt inside. Your mother used to say later that my face was unusual—it combined serious intensity with the possibility of wild abandon. Throughout my life, mostly unknowingly, I have used this contradiction in my appearance to unnerve people and put them off balance—but it was just this contradiction, she said, that attracted her.
    Like most students, we both lived at home. I was an only