For about three weeks, we lived on my stepfather's houseboat in the backyard canal while our new home was undergoing renovations.  I remember luring the indigenous ducks by tossing pretzel sticks into the water. My mother remembers writing me a lateness excuse for school: "My daughter couldn't get off the boat because it was low tide."

The house seller left me a present (a prescient one, perhaps): an adorable stuffed mouse. One rainy night, I left it too near the boat's open door and the next morning, my mother brought it into the house and sent it through the dryer. Its bright plastic eyes became "bloodshot," its neck hung limp and its whiskers drooped badly. I believe I was well into adulthood before I forgave her.

We'd spent many days and nights on the boat before. Mother and J used to dock it in one of the Hamptons all summer, at the Bath and Tennis Club. Paradise for a kid.

They made friends there, friends who led them to the town where they bought their house. The whole thing ended badly some 20 years on, with the woman accused of an affair with my stepdad, the man sick with AIDS and the daughter in a mental hospital.

But, at the time, the boat was a place to bring friends: theirs, mine. During the days, we'd ride tandem bicycles, snack on French fries in the pink cafe. I remember long drives home to the city as I lay across the backseat with my feet up. My mother and I sometimes think of those times as the golden age of her marriage and, indeed, our family.

Like most "golden ages," it was brief. About a year after we lived on the houseboat, it was sold or docked somewhere else. My mother had another child. So did my stepmother. We spent our summers at home.