The bullies were gone. They had my camera.

Roslyn's photo was in my jeans. I lifted my shirt and inspected the grey bruise webbing across my chest. I wasn't sure if I had done the right thing; either way, my parents were gonna kill me.

“They're jerks,” Whit said as he rolled along the path.

“Yeah,” I said. “Real jerks.”

“So...” He paused as if it was my job to fill in the blank.

“So?”

“So are you gonna look at the picture?”

I pulled the Polaroid from my pocket and creased it in half, then quarters.

Whit shook his head. “Do you even know that girl?”

A Coke bottle protruded from the dirt beside the path. I tore the picture along each crease, crumpled the squares, then jammed them into the neck of the bottle. I added some dirt, then stepped on the glass until the soft ground swallowed it whole; another treasure lost forever in my castle forest.

The storybook shafts of sun had dissipated, leaving the woods in stagnant light. As we walked toward the house, I felt a soft poke in my side. I looked down... Whit was offering the Butterfinger.

I took the candy bar, ate it, and pushed my friend all the way home.

*  *  *

We emerged from the trees just as a burgundy minivan came weaving down the paver-brick driveway. I waved to Mrs. Conrad, Whit's mom, then gave her a hug when she got out to help with the chair.

She made a big deal about the scratch on my face. She held my chin, inspected the depth of the cut to rule out stitches, thumbed the bruise around my jowls, and recommended a dab of peroxide and three small bandaids. Good thing she couldn't see my ribs.

When I finally convinced her that I wouldn’t drop dead on my way in the house, she kissed my good cheek and helped her son into the passenger seat.

“Summer in two weeks,” Whit said.

I nodded and waved. But it wouldn't be summer without a camera.

The van's brake lights drifted left and right, flickered between tree branches, then disappeared completely. Sunday was “family day” in the Parker house--no exceptions--so Whit's Saturday evening pick-up had become routine.

I turned around and looked at the castle. It was supposed to be in my movie, The Girl's final destination, a spectacular set-piece for the epic climax. I already drew the storyboards for the Spielbergian shots for the sword fight between The Girl and the evil prince... but without a camera, I was screwed.

My fingers grazed the coarse stucco retaining wall that held the dune away from the driveway. I hop-scotched a fallen scooter, a bucket of sidewalk-chalk, and a tipped bag of fertilizer awaiting the geranium trough along the garage.

I should pause for brief explanation of the castle, as it was one of the few quirks in my otherwise normal childhood.

With an infant at home, a bun in the oven, and the promise of more foster kids, my parents decided that it was time to upgrade from their two-bedroom apartment above Dad's architecture firm to a place more appropriate to raise a family. Through her old realty connections, Mom discovered a deal on a 1920's Spanish-style castle in money-pit disrepair. There were leaks in three rooms. The kitchen was trapped in the seventies with rust-brown linoleum counters and a yellow linoleum floor. The inside walls were slathered in lead-based paint, and the basement was a dungeon, perpetually moist and sprinkled with the gnarled nestings of rats. But it was huge, it was cheap, and it was a beautiful place for kids to grow up.

Dad agreed that the investment was promising... pending a substantial overhaul of the dilapidated interior. (I don't recall the exact stage of the do-it-yourself remodel in 1994, but I'm sure there was a layer of sawdust over every flat surface, unfinished drywall scrawled with crayon graffiti, and a mountain of torn carpet in at least one room.)

The estate sat on the outskirts of a quaint tourist-trap town called Grand Harbor, placing us squarely inside what the elementary playground dubbed “hillbilly township.” The world as I knew it stretched for five miles along the lakeshore, starting with the red lighthouse at the State Park and ending with A.J.'s home on Hickory Street a half-mile south. In between sat Whit's middle-class suburb, the Township Walmart, and the glorious castle where I grew up.

Trees hugged the brick structure on three sides, nestling it comfortably atop a dune grass bluff with an extraordinary view of the lake. From the beach, the mansion was intimidating with three steeples of varying heights, mismatched and awkwardly placed windows, a tower that stood higher than the tallest oak, and wrought-iron accents that bestowed the palace with a gothic aura. When the sun dropped just below the horizon, the castle looked majestic; “A little piece of heaven,” marveled my mother's friends whenever they stopped by. But at night, when the moon cut zagged shadows across the brick and glass, I imagined the house among the eerie fog and lamplit cobblestone streets of Transylvania.

Woulda been perfect for a movie, I thought.

A new hummingbird feeder graced the eve above the front door and glistened red in the light from the setting sun. Leo, the stone lion, stood guard. I stroked his mane, thumped his back, and went inside.

*  *  *

Years later, the smell of basil would remind me of Mara's eyes; how they matched exquisitely the flicking emerald glass of the tea-candle sitting between my lasagna and her Chianti at the Campanile in LA. But in the mid-nineties, basil meant Mom's kitchen.

“What happened to your cheek?” she asked without looking up from the stove. “You know how worried Whitney’s mother gets when you wrestle.”

“We weren’t wrestling. I just tripped. Where is everybody?”

“Jake has a time-out in Mom and Dad's room, Bobby has a time-out in your room, Dad's in the tower with his head in the clouds, Fantasia's right behind you--rock her for me?--and Olivia's in her room with... what's her name... the redhead?”

“Kimmy? I thought you said no friends on Saturday nights!”

Mom looked up but continued to stir. “You want some cheese with that whine? Next week is your sister's first set of exams and I told her she could study with a friend. Don't be a little booger tonight, okay? They're nervous.”

“I thought exams were for high schoolers.”

“Junior high too. Do Mom a favor and be sweet to your sister, okay?”

“I'll be good.”

“Pinky promise?”

Whenever I fly home for the holidays, I make it a point to squeeze my Mother's shoulders, to calm her hazel eyes, and to ask her about her. Like most “stay-at-homes,” Mom lived for everyone but herself. She was a chameleon of necessity with the ability to morph--seamlessly and without complaint--into whatever roll her family demanded. At once she was a gourmet chef, a fast-food employee, a soccer player, baseball player, frisbee thrower and Monopoly banker; a nutritionist, cab driver, hair-stylist, architecture consultant, surgeon (specializing in sliver removal), lover, mentor, counselor and executioner. She performed her duties despite a low metabolism, high cholesterol, and a weakness for things covered in cheese; she wasn't fat, but her body fluctuated between varying degrees of “round.” During the nineties, her dimpled thighs went to war with Dr. Atkins, Weight Watchers, Susan Summers and a plethora of “lose forty pounds in two weeks!” yo-yo schemes. But like everything personal, Mom buried her weight issues in a carousel of characters, performing daily routines for her family's well-being. (Only in writing this book was I able to make these observations; in '94, Mom was just a mom.)

“Yeah, Ma,” I said. “I pinky promise.”

She balanced her ladle on the pot's edge, bent down, ran her thumb across my cut, and pecked my forehead. “Go fix up your face and tell Dad dinner's ready in ten. I love you, Jamesie.”

I wiped off the kiss and groaned, “Love you too.”