Dalton is the young boy I knew when he was 7. I worked for his mother at Harper & Row. She was a trade editor. She died in 1976, not being able to beat back the cancer that she had been fighting for several years.

I found Dalton on Facebook and we have started a dialogue. I also searched for his older brother, Brandon, 14 when I knew him, but could not find him. From Dalton, I learned some dismaying things. It appears his father, Richard, was perniciously angry with his late wife. From what I knew of him in personal observations, and also from what my late husband told me (they had for a time been associates at a technical writing firm), Richard was a failure in everything. I am convinced he was outraged that his wife had outdistanced him intellectually and professionally. She was rubbing shoulders with major figures in the literary world, creating an envy and resentment in him that was, apparently, an open sore.

Richard's retaliation was that he was determined to erase his wife's memory. He refused to tell the boys anything about her and when they insisted, he told them she did not love them, had left no messages for them, had left them nothing of any material value.

To make matters worse, Richard hired no one to care for the boys at home, leaving them on their own while he went to business and spent his free time going to sex clubs and dating.

This legacy of abandonment has not served the boys well. At this moment, Brandon has cut himself off from the remaining family, including his brother. Dalton, meanwhile, has reached out to former colleagues of his mother and is getting a totally different picture of who she was. He is hearing from everyone that she adored her boys, and talked of them often.

There are dismaying details concerning Richard’s behavior that are so heinous I will not write of them here. The healthy thing is that Dalton has ended the relationship.

Dalton and I spoke on the phone a day ago. And I took pains to tell him as much as I could remember. I E mailed some others who were at Harper & Row and knew his mom, and they are in touch with him as well. Dalton is coming down to Florida later this month and we will meet. I am happy to get to know him and that I have been able to fill in some of the blanks. He has also invited me to come to New York for a memorial gathering on his mother’s birthday in April.

All in all, a gratifying Christmas present.

xx, Teal