September 1957. My new stepfather dropped me and my new stepbrother (headed for MIT) in Boston after our cross-country trip from California. My stepfather (a wonderful man who would drop dead over the breakfast table six years later, ending my divorced mother’s one shot at happiness) was in a big hurry to meet up with my mother in Denver for their honeymoon. “You guys will be fine,” he said, not looking back. “Fine” was not quite it.