I watched my mother flip through the book, then study a single page.

"That's our best card," the man said. "It's our 1955 Special Limited Edition. You want, we can personalize." He looked at Russell. "Like The Russell B. Conlin Family, and then all your names. "

Russell stood up from the table. "Nah," he said. "Seems like everything's getting too complicated anymore. I'd just as soon we write our own names."

"Well, Russell, you got a nice family coming along," the man said. "Guess I've lost track since last time I was here. How many children you got now?"

"Two, and Kate here," Russell said, holding his hand out toward me. "She's in first grade already."

"And one more in the oven, too," the man said. "Like I like to say, customer's always right, but I'd think you'd be proud to have your family name on it."

"Nah, I don't think so," Russell said, moving toward the cellar door. "I gotta go downcellar put some coal on the furnace."

"I don't think I like this one that much anyway," my mother said. The card was a picture of The Wise Men on thick, shiny paper. I loved how bright the big star looked. "A little too fancy. "

One of the babies started crying. "I better check upstairs," my mother said. She crossed the linoleum to the hall and started up the steps.

When she left, the man leaned over to me. "Do you ever hear from your father?" he whispered.

I looked toward the cellar door.

"No, I mean your real father," he said. He was staring at me. "Your real father's Elroy, right?"

I felt my face go hot. "Oh. Yeah," I said.

"Sent him up the river, five-to-ten, what I hear," the man said. "He ever send you a letter or something?"

"No, " I said. "My mother says he doesn't care about me. "

"Jeez," the man said.

We heard Russell on the stairs, then at the cellar door. The man looked away from me and straightened in his chair.

"That thing eats coal like anything," Russell said, crossing to the sink to soap his hands. "Everything costs and costs. Don't know where the money's coming from." Russell twisted around and looked at the man over his shoulder.

"I know what you mean," the man said. "Way things keep going up, sometimes you wonder where's it going to end."

"Yeah," Russell said. "Down to the mill, the union got its hands full just trying to keep what we already got. Seems like nobody cares about the working man anymore. Thank God this country'll always need steel."

Russell crossed to the table. We heard my mother coming down the stairs. Then she sat down next to me and picked up the book again. She flipped to a page at the back.

"I think this one's nice, Russell?" She passed the book over to him. It was open to a small card of people ice-skating in the moonlight. Russell nodded. My mother said, "Let me just write you a check."

"Fine," the man said. "That's a dollar a box, and I'll deliver them to you myself. Should be about two weeks." He gathered his books and cards into his sample case and took my mother's check. "Oh," he said, reaching into the case again, "look here!" He turned to me. "I have an extra. Why don't I just give it to you?"

I took it without looking up at him. "Thank you," I said. Then my mother and Russell and the man all stood up and started for the door. "Goodbye, Kate," the man said to me.

"Goodbye," I said, studying the card, looking past the skaters and along the moonlit riverbank, searching for some traces of my father.

She has extensive experience as a writer and editor in Washington. She has written several book-length Annual Reports to Congress for a federal agency often described as a toothless watchdog, although she herself has several teeth.

Her career path has meandered through several colorful detours, including two battles with breast cancer. She would rather have a life than a breast, and she lives to tell the tale.