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talk of him.”
    â€œOkay, but what Daddy did was pretty bad. Does that mean Uncle Leon did something even worse?”
    â€œYour father, Uncle Leon…who knows?”
    â€œSomeone must know.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter. The book is good.” Meaning: It sold a lot of copies. “It doesn’t have to be true. War and Peace isn’t true.”
    â€œMy book is true, Nonnie. It’s a memoir, I made a point to get everything right.”
    â€œBut you can only get things as right as people let you.”
    â€œAre you mad that I told the story about Uncle Leon and you? I asked your side.”
    Nonnie pointed a fork at her. “I know how to be mad at people and if I were mad, you wouldn’t be here.”
    A month later, she was dead. Cassandra was surprised to see her father at the funeral, more surprised that he had the tact not to bring Annie. He seldom went anywhere without her. Still, when the rabbi invited people up to share their thoughts, Cedric simply couldn’t resist gettingup to say a few words, awkward as that was. Uncle Leon didn’t get up, nor did Cassandra’s mother, but the son-in-law who long ago ceased to be a son-in-law waxed eloquent about a woman he had never much liked.
    Later, at a brunch in her mother’s house, Cassandra ventured to her father, “Nonnie said I didn’t know the truth of the things I wrote, that I got them wrong.” They were alone, by the buffet table, and she was struck by the novelty of having him to herself.
    â€œNonnie was the queen of the mind-fuckers,” her father said, spearing cold cuts. “Do you know why she was so angry at your uncle Leon?”
    â€œNo, she would never tell me.”
    â€œThat’s because she couldn’t remember. He did something thirty years ago that pissed her off, but she would never tell him what it was. Then she forgot. She forgot the precipitating incident, but she never forgot the grudge. Your uncle Leon was desperate to apologize, but he never knew what he did. Your mother used to go visit her and try to guess what Leon did, so he might make amends, and your grandmother would say, ‘No, that’s not it,’ like some Alzheimer’s-addled Sphinx or a Hungarian Rumpelstiltskin, forcing the princess to guess his name when he didn’t know it himself.”
    Could it really be? Cassandra decided she believed him, although her father had never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
    â€œThose are your mother’s people, Cassandra,” her father said. “Thank God you take after me.”
    Now, more than a decade later, her mother was saying, “Thank God you take after me, Cassandra. In your resilience. You’ll come back from this, I’m sure of it.”
    â€œFrom what?”
    â€œWell—I just mean that I think you’re right, this next book could be something special.”
    Her mother did not mean to suggest Cassandra was a failure. Lenniesimply couldn’t escape the context of her own life, which she saw as a series of mistakes and disappointments. Yet she had actually enjoyed a brief burst of local celebrity when Cassandra was in high school, appearing on a chat show as “Lennie the handywoman,” demonstrating basic repairs. That was when she had started to wear overalls and painter’s caps, much to her teenage daughter’s chagrin.
    A more ambitious woman might have parlayed this weekly segment into an empire; after all, the cohost of People Are Talking was a bubbly young woman named Oprah Winfrey. Years later, when Cassandra took her place on Oprah’s sofa, she had asked during the commercial break if Oprah remembered the woman who had provided those home repair tips, the one with the short sandy hair. Oprah said she did, and Cassandra wanted to believe this was true. Her mother had always been easily overlooked, which was one reason she had been enthralled with vivid, attention-grabbing