The fall of 1977 had arrived in northern Indiana, and orange and yellow leaves as big as paper plates covered the russet lawn of Southwood Elementary, where I was in fourth grade. My mother had been referring to herself in the third person for almost two years by then. A hysterectomy without hormone-replacement therapy had left her acting strange and feverish. She was always engaged in some project or another, such as painting rooms of our rental house in wild colors: the pantry cherry red; the living room coal black; the bathroom red, white, and blue (for the Bicentennial) with silver and gold glitter thrown on while the paint was still wet. “Your mother sure is tired,” she’d say, or, “Your mother wishes she could find some time to paint the inside of the closet purple.” Who was this other mother? And why was she so tired and wishful? She looked as though she’d been jolted by electricity, her beautiful brown eyes alive with surging energy but puffy and gray underneath. At times her zest to complete tasks frightened my brothers and sisters and me, and I’d hide from her, even though I liked to help her cut out pictures for collages.