Left on Tenth : A Second Chance at Life: a Memoir (9780316268875) by Ephron Delia

Left on Tenth : A Second Chance at Life: a Memoir (9780316268875) by Ephron Delia

Author:Ephron, Delia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: None
Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA
Published: 2022-12-04T00:00:00+00:00


All my e-mails about whether this drug will arrive and when to take this drug are like this. And what chromosomes am I even talking about? I don’t think Dr. Roboz has ever mentioned chromosomes. All Dr. Roboz’s return e-mails are calming.

Rydapt arrives the morning I leave for my book tour. I pack it, give Honey a hug, and leave her in the care of Lauren, our dog walker.

When I arrive in Northern California at the start of my tour, I am, well, meshuga (a Yiddish word meaning “nuts”). I manage to keep it mostly to myself, although I am beset with anxiety when we visit Peter’s son. Naftali lives in the San Rafael hills and there are about twenty-three wooden steps down to enter his house. I am sure I will tumble down them. I worry that Idra, a sparkly two-year-old, will give me a cold and kill me when she dances around the room. How do I stay far enough away from her in the small living room? How do I get to know Peter’s family under those circumstances?

I believe this is when I meet his daughter, Melina, and her partner, Matt, who live in Oakland. Melina, pregnant, has long ink-black hair, a wide smile, pale skin, deep red lipstick, and many tattoos. She looks like a beautiful punk princess. They are Northern California people—politically left and vegan. She is immensely smart, as is Matt (who will shortly be elected president of the Berkeley Teachers union). There is stuff I’m not used to, like taking off my shoes to enter their house (everyone in Peter’s Bay Area world seems to take their shoes off inside), but it’s all minor; they could not be nicer.

I visit bookstores in and around San Francisco. I celebrate Meredith’s birthday, meet all her friends at a little party around an outdoor curvy swimming pool. There is a photo of me, Meredith, and her birthday cake. We are smiling. It is a lovely evening. I can be happy for short stretches when my internal panic is temporarily distracted. I fly to LA and give a talk at the Beverly Hills Public Library, which goes just fine except that they got my autobiographical information off my website, which I had not updated since Jerry died. The woman who introduces me says that I am married to the writer Jerome Kass and have a dog named Honey. Standing at the podium, I get hit with a wave of grief and have to take a minute to collect myself. They give me a present for Honey, a stuffed toy.

Afterward I have dinner with Phil and Jill. A lovely evening on their deck. Alex is there too, with his wife, Hope. Phil and Alex were both Jerry’s students, and Alex met Hope because she was my niece’s best friend and I took her to a party at my friend-daughter Heather’s. Our worlds are all scrambled up in a great way. Good family is how I think of them, by which I mean friends that make you feel loved and safe.



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