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I hope you haven’t forgotten your Grandfather Kinsey and me We love you so very very much You may not remember, but the last time I saw you, you were three years old and we took you to the circus You had a wonderful ti the clowns and the trained ani your Aunt Virginia will ht wonder what you would do in this big house of ours We’ve set aside a special bedroom for you with lots of toys and books We can paint it any color you like Pink or blue or yellow Which do you prefer? We have an orchard with soes In front of the house, there’s a big oak with a tire swing, and there are grassy fields where you can run to your heart’s content And guess what else? We have two Shetland ponies and a nanny goat naoat is called a kid Have you ever seen one? Your cousins are begging you to co kitchen If you tell us your favorite kind, you can have a dozen and one! I was going to keep this a secret, but I can’t resistwe have a new puppy! His name is Skippy and he says "woof, woof," which means please come to see us

The rest of Grand’s letters to me were the sainary child, as she knew nothing about me I could hardly fault her for that It had been years since her -up job raising five daughters when the role was hers Here she orking to insinuate herself into my life while Aunt Gin blocked her every move

I had to aditi full-ti the day I was certain she’d done no such thing My memory of those early days is sketchy at best, but I would have shrunk in horror if I’d been left in the hands of anyone else Aunt Gin was ered the overwhelhhowl she wouldn’t have tried it again I knew she hadn’t asked for tiested From early June until Septeh-energy, a tireless worker, with no patience at all for slackers She’d been with California Fidelity Insurance since she was nineteen years old, probably without having taken a sick day or a vacation day, both of which she considered a forence

When I started school that fall, she droppedand then picked me up at twelve-thirty, when she’d usher me into the office with her I had a little table and chair on one side of her desk, and I would a books, and other quiet pursuits I wondered how California Fidelity Insurance felt about having a child underfoot By the ti arson and wrongful-death clairound floor of the building, where parents could drop off their children on their way to work

I felt the penny drop Virginia Kinsey had done that When she assumed the role of faux mother, it was the ’50s and I was sure CFI had no provision for child care and no interest in initiating such a program The idea of children on the work premises was years in the future, but she was a force to contend with It would have been exactly like her to co me to spend half-days with her CFI would have jumped for joy at the chance to do as she required Unless they capitulated, they’d have never heard the end of it My guess was that once she established the precedent, other esters leapt at the opportunity to have their little ones close at hand The co trained teachers or teachers’ aides--there were none on the pre my tenure--but they did provide child-care workers whose salaries the parents paid Having their children under the sa to

"What’s this crap I hear about you opening a can of worh case? I can’t believe you’d have the gall toso loud it took ure out who it was "Lieutenant Dolan?"

My relationship with Lieutenant Dolan had spanned a number of years Health issues had forced hirapevine Having knocked heads early on, we’d finally co based on mutual admiration and respect I should have been inured to his occasional sharp tone, but it always took me by surprise