My grandmother Baker - my mother's mother -talks about what a comfort I was to her and to my grandfather, too. After my mother died, l)ad was terribly upset and concerned about whether he could take care of an infant on his own. When my mother's parents offered to take care of me, my dad thought that would be best. So he let me go to Iowa to live with my grandparents. They raised me until I was eighteen months old. I don't remember being with my grandparents, but Grandmother Baker has told me about that part of my life. She also continued the baby book my mother began. It's filled with details (most of them pretty boring) about my early life.

When I visited my grandmother recently, I asked her what I was like as a baby. "When you first came to us," she told me, "you were clingy. You didn't want us out of your sight, even for a minute." She smiled. "But of course we didn't want to lose sight of you for a minute either, so it worked out fine. Your grandfather would hold you against his shoulder and go off to the fields to look at the corn. And when I went to town, I'd push you around in the stroller while I did my errands. Everyone admired you."

"Didn't it bother you when I cried and stuff?" I asked. I was remembering some fussy infants I'd baby-sat for.

"No," she said. "First of all, you were a very easy baby. And second, we were so glad to have you. For us it was a way of keeping Alma alive."

My earliest memory is of being with my dad. So it must have been when I was living with him again. I remember being in the house on Bradford Court. I was playing on the living room rug with a pile of plastic cones that fit into one another. Someone must have been baby-sitting for me, but I don't remember who. I do remember hearing a car pull into the driveway, which I recognized as the sound I always heard before my father came through the kitchen door. I put down the cones and stood up. When my father entered I was already running toward him. He reached out and lifted me into his arms. It must have been winter, because I remember the cold on his coat and face. I don't remember what we said. I don't even know if I could talk yet. I just remember how glad I was to be with him, and the feel of his cold cheek against my warm one.