On screen behind me, Ralph has found a suitcase full of counterfeit money a mobster left on his bus. For two days, the Kramdens are going to be rich. Everything Ralph purchases to surprise Alice—the gleaming white electric stove, white refrigerator and matching white cabinetry, the tall white chest of drawers replacing the humble credenza—will look ridiculous in their tiny gray apartment. Just like the raft of shiny tin and steel boyhood fantasies—an electric train, an erector set, a chemistry and microscope set, dozens of matchbox size automobiles—that shockingly appeared beneath the Hellers' Christmas tree in 1960, after Father had finally received his injury settlement from the Frisco Railroad. I was the sole beneficiary of the Hellers' sudden good fortune, for with it Father bought little for Mother and nothing at all for himself. But like Ralph, he dreamed of giving his family much more. And so he invested almost all the money in three projects: a local auto body shop, a local tavern, and—the gamble he would most regret—the motel in Fort Smith. After all his investments failed, Father took a second maintenance job, then a third. Mother went to night school and learned to type, file, and take notes in shorthand. Eventually, she got a full-time job as a secretary at Kerr-McGee. Mostly because of her steady wages and health care benefits, we managed to keep our house.
        You did that, Mom, I want to say. You.
        The more competent and independent Mother became, the more she resembled Alice, who, unlike impulsive Ralph, does not trust the good fortune of the suitcase and refuses to spend any of the found money.
        You know what I think, Ralph? I think you've gone crazy. I think you've been spending this money like a lunatic. I told you to hang onto the money, Ralph, until you found out what this is all about.
        While the Kramdens' drama plays out behind me in scratchy black and white, Mother continues to examine the color snapshot in my hand. Watching her, I can't help but wonder: Was her own gray life ever colorized? The answer isn't clear. In the 70s, after I had moved out, gotten married, and started working my way though graduate school, my parents finally began to pull ahead. Kerr-McGee promoted Mother to Executive Secretary, and Father's maintenance job at the capitol finally paid enough that he needed no others. Father tried a few more investment schemes, but none of them panned out. It didn't seem to matter. My parents actually helped Mary and me out when we purchased, then later renovated our house in the Little Apple. Once in a while, when we drove down to Yukon for a visit, I actually caught my parents expressing affection for each other: a touch, a squeeze, a pat on the wrist—and, a couple of times that I still remember, a subtle glance that I've never seen on any screen. But when Mother complained that she had seen a stranger peeking at her through the French doors looking out onto our backyard patio, Father, who never heard of John Cheever or “The Country Husband,” painted the mullioned glass black and told her to shut up.
        What kind of love was this?
        Mother lays a finger on the corner of the photograph, as if her touch will bring the scene to life.
        “Do you remember the flagstone patio behind our house in Yukon?”

                                6