22 - "I knew your father"

Even as I stood with my back to her I could feel her watching me, the woman dressed in black on the other side of the room. Mother had taken me to one of her parties in a grandiose apartment on Park Avenue, one of the sort I keep dreaming about (literarily).

I tried not to look but my curiosity got the better of me. She sat there alone, close to the bar, all the other women swarmed around rich looking men dressed in tailored suits holding filled up whiskey glasses. I went up to her and asked her if she knew me. "No" she said, "but I knew your father". My heart stopped for what felt like more than a minute, I had always thought I was the only one.

She looked around the room and for a second I thought I saw a glimpse of contempt in her jade green eyes before she came back to me and smiled crookedly: "we all did."