My youngest son, he marries his high school sweetheart. They drive to California in the little Honda; we ship out the Spode china wrapped in packing peanuts and newspaper. They live out there for a couple of years, I am telling you, so happily. He is in Italian Vogue, my son, and the satisfaction, the health in his face. He goes to Morocco for a layout in GQ, my beautiful son. Alicia, she finds a good job in Hollywood. She’s a people person, Alicia.

So they are out there living the high life, him flitting from L.A. to Italy, New York, south of France, you name it. And then my son, he has two tragedies. The first: he goes to Sears and buys a rowing machine. It snaps on him. The muscles in his back, they are never the same. He gets a good settlement but still, there goes the boy’s back.

Then the second, the second tragedy: Alicia leaves him for an L.A. hotshot. She uses my son to get out to California. She climbs on his sore back and then kicks him to the ground. And she takes the Spode china, the whole twelve-piece set. Not a piece broke in the mail because I wrote fragile on the boxes in red indelible ink. Not a piece.

Bio: Julie Gard