My mother gave birth to two sets of twins by C-section and came home with one baby girl each time. This is not as tragic as it sounds. The first time was back when C-sections were so dangerous, they were only performed if death was a certain alternative. Ma had a lengthy recovery and was so frail that when she came home, her doctor made my father give her a big glass of red wine each and every day, which started her on her career of alcoholic-in-training. Since she had no memory of her delivery, other than the determination never to repeat it, she insisted that the hospital made a mistake when it wrote on my sister’s birth certificate that she was a twin, the other being stillborn. She persisted in this belief her entire life, as did my sister. I know the certificate was accurate for several reasons, not least of which was that when I asked my father about it, he remained silent. His reticence to speak was a clue to his secret. Rather than lie to me, he remained mute. My father was a scrupulously honest man. He was so honest that when the Customs officer asked if he had anything to declare the first time he and my mother returned from a vacation in Europe, he declared a package of six white handkerchiefs. The officer gave him a dirty look and waved them through as my mother brazenly marched past wearing three watches under her sleeve: the one she took to France and the two new ones she bought there. No, this is not a joke. She literally did that. During my mother’s second pregnancy, one of the twins was actually a tumor. She went to a doctor who told her she not only had a uterine tumor, she happened also to be pregnant. Surprise! Surgery was postponed, allowing my womb-mate and me to grow to full size, with C-section scheduled on my father’s birthday. That would have been keen, except my nine-year old sister set the house on fire five days before our arrival date. She got the full blame, although it actually was her playmate who set the house on fire when they were playing with matches in the garage-turned-playroom. And it wasn’t the entire house. The firemen were able to extinguish the blaze, leaving only my sister’s bedroom, her playroom, and all her toys burnt to ashes. My mother got so annoyed she refused to replace any of the toys, which is why my sister had to grow up at age nine. Also, my mother got so frightened she went into labor. Thus, I have my own unique birth date and a fear of fire that was imprinted on my adrenal glands while in utero. It’s not my fault. Have I mentioned that my father smoked four packs of Camels cigarettes a day? Night and day. He was also a deep thinker. When he wasn’t regaling you with a story that interested him, he was deeply absorbed in profound thoughts. During these fits of mental preoccupation, he would peel off the cellophane wrappers of his cigarette packs and drop them absentmindedly on the floor. Most of the time, he’d make it to an ashtray before the smoking embers fell off his cigarettes, but not always. My mother followed him around the house like a puppy, picking up debris and emptying ashtrays before he set the house on fire, but she wasn’t always successful. Let me give you two examples. Ma and I were always on fire alert, and that is truly sad because we lived in Southern California where everyone else only had to be on fire alert during the summer. On this particular day, she and I were in the kitchen. Ever sensitive to the smell of smoke, we both started up and ran to the little den at the back of the house where my father was busily typing his law school homework. The plastic trashcan at the side of his desk was in full flame. With no time for conversation, my mother picked up the can and ran through the house toward the laundry room back door while I ran to the kitchen sink to fill a bucket with water. She almost reached the door when the can got too hot to hold and she dropped it. I doused the flames with water. The fire went out but the trashcan was fused to the linoleum forever. Hearts pounding, the acrid stink of burnt plastic in the air, we stood wondering what to do next when my father wandered into the kitchen asking, “Do you smell smoke?” We just stared at him. Then Ma pointed to the red pile of goo on the floor. Had he not noticed the flames? Had he not heard the crackling sounds of danger? How can you not see a campfire when it’s five inches from your elbow? Apparently he thought he was flicking his cigarette ashes into the ashtray next to his typewriter. He missed. Looking sheepish, he returned to his studies. Ma never replaced the trashcan, thinking it would be safer to just pick crumpled paper off the floor once a day. Before I tell you about the second example, I need to give you more background. The only door we closed in our house was the bathroom door. Bedroom doors were always left open. It was an insult to anyone else in the house if we closed our bedroom doors. Ma would tell you this when she opened your closed door and left it open. I think this comes from some old Eastern European Jewish superstition because in Yentl the movie, Barbara Streisand leaves her father’s door ajar, or vice versa. Open doors mattered because I needed to see the wall closest to my father’s side of the bed from wherever I lay in my bedroom. I’d taught myself to wake up whenever he decided to smoke in bed. At the sound of match striking matchbook, I would jerk awake like a sentry on duty and stare at his wall, waiting for the glow of light to flare up and then subside. Once I was sure the match was out, I could go back to sleep. My efforts were not in vain. One night when my mother was working at the bar, the light did not subside. It continued to grow in brightness and height. My father had managed to set another trashcan on fire, the one next to his bedside. This time he was the one running with the flaming can, toward the bathroom while, at his instructions, I ran to the kitchen, grabbed a floor mop, soaked it with water, and fled back so he could use it like a toilet plunger to put out the fire. Why he didn’t think to put the can in the bathtub or the shower and turn on the water I couldn’t tell you. All I knew was to follow instructions and apparently he thought a wet mop was the best solution. Perhaps my mother had told him if he ever set anything on fire again she would kill him. I don’t know. I just remember that he said, “Don’t tell your mother,” and then we cleaned up.