Unlike the wicked stepmother in the fairy tales, she had a gentle nature and could not bear any kind of altercation. And it was not in her to wrestle, like Jacob with the angel, until I stopped being faithful to a dead woman and accepted her as my mother. Instead she chose the role of the go-between. When my older brother had a Saturday-night date and wanted my father to let him have the car, he enlisted her aid and went off with the car keys in his pocket.
