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tighter he held me and the warmth of his body calmed me. Even though it was ice-cold, my shriveled dick started to grow.
    My mom and dad approached, thanking my savior profusely. My dad removed his big navy blue overcoat and wrapped me in it. Then he lifted me into his arms and carried me to the car.
    It was the first—and the last—time that I remember my father ever holding me. Even when I was a baby, my mother relished telling me years later, he had refused to touch me because I was “a mistake.”
    “You’re going to be okay, honey,” my mom said as we began the drive home. She ordered my dad to turn the car heater all the way up.
    Exhausted, I fell asleep thinking of my hero with the Technicolor mustache and teeth but secretly wishing that my dad had been the one to save me.
    The next morning at school, I achieved instantaneous celebrity status. A broken arm followed by a brush with death made me the Elizabeth Taylor of my elementary school. But fame, especially when it is predicated only on being accident prone, is short-lived. I knew I had to find something more substantial to keep me in the spotlight.

CHAPTER 7                
    When the divorce finally became a reality, after years of anticipation, like coming attractions you’d see at a movie theater, I was compelled to find the family photographs and study them, determined to identify a clue that might help me salvage the crumbling marriage.
    One of my favorites was an oversize black-and-white photo, safely ensconced in a glossy white folder. On the cover was a drawing of a nude woman in an erotically charged pose with the words “Latin Quarter” emblazoned under her curvaceous body.
    Each time I opened the folder, my heartbeat accelerated as I soaked in the glamorous beauty of my mommy and daddy. They were a breathtaking couple; made for each other, I thought.
    They looked like movie stars, meticulously coiffed and groomed, ready for their close-up. She was all curves—her eyebrows, cupid lips and rounded cheekbones. Her beauty was astounding, a blessing that would become a curse. He was elegant, verging on effete, but maintaining a sensual masculinity. The photograph was so luminous that it practically made you squint—his silky tie, her shimmering dress, the pomade on his slicked-back hair.
    There were a few new photos in the drawer, recently added to her private collection. One of them captured Mr. and Mrs. Kearns at least fifteen years after their passionate night at the Latin Quarter.
    He was attempting to smile at the camera, but it was bad acting. The look on her face was harrowing. She stared straight ahead, zombie-like, as if she was unaware of the flashing camera. All that could be read on her severe face, showing its age, was an expression of unspeakable disillusionment. Still beautiful, yes, but the beauty of sadness.
    Those two photos serve as bookends, encompassing the years that included the births of my brother and me and the collective pain of a family on a collision course.
    There was another photo that would, in years to come, contradict what I’d been told by Mommy. Even though he seems wooden and ill at ease, my father did hold me in his arms, albeit awkwardly, when I was a newborn. On the back, in her handwriting, she had written, “Michael, 1950.”
    As the divorce went into overdrive, my mission to save our family continued, but the answer could not be found in the photographs.
    The divorce of Pauline and Joseph Kearns had all the ingredients of a Hollywood screenplay: reports of mental instability, infidelity and physical abuse along with some sharp courtroom rejoinders that included, “The truth is bad enough.”
    In spite of her obsessive philandering, proven beyond doubt, the court did not find her to be an unfit mother.
    Did I?
    While she managed to intermittently commit to playing the mother role, her desperate quest to find a new husband became her priority, especially post divorce, often threatening the