This was in 1976, when we were still happy. Your father and I were living in Northern California by then, in the old slaughterhouse on his father’s farm that we had remodeled. I remember it still had the giant metal hooks that hung from the tracks running along the ceiling. There was an old bowling alley nearby that had gone out of business, and we’d salvaged the wood from the lanes for our countertops and trim. I don’t know if it’s there anymore, but over the bathtub there was this giant window and I used to take a bath in the mornings and look out at the mist settling over the pasture. We were newlyweds, your father was just starting his law practice then and we were dirt poor.

My family back in Paris thought I’d lost my mind. They had come to visit us once after we were married, and your Grandpa Charlie did like your father. They’d talked about American history and Baudelaire and red wine, but your grandpa stood out a little in his suit and patent leather shoes out in the cow pasture, and they didn’t stay very long.

It was a terrible winter that year. I remember it snowed two and a half feet on Thanksgiving and the power went out for two days. We had cold mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce right out of the can, and pumpkin pie by candlelight. In December, your Grandpa Charlie called and invited us to come to New York as special guests of Max Ernst for his Retrospective at the Guggenheim. My stepmother was very good friends with his wife Dorothea, and we’d all been invited to a special party at the German Consulate.

You can imagine, I think, how excited I was! In art school I’d studied his work, and the thought of experiencing this, the crowning achievement in his glorious and masterful career, was a little unbelievable snowbound in the middle of a farm. Your father had to work and couldn’t come, and also, I think, he was a little uncomfortable not being able to pay for himself. He can be very proud, you know.

Your grandpa met me at the airport in New York about a week before Christmas, and the city was even more amazing than I’d imagined. We were staying at the Algonquin, right in the heart of Manhattan, and the first night I didn’t want to go anywhere but only lie on the king-sized bed, order room service and watch television. I watched Walter Cronkite. Then I took a long bath and looked out at the Manhattan skyline, the Empire State Building. I missed your father and I called him. I said, “How are things back home?”

“It’s snowing,” he said. “If it keeps snowing I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it up the road in the morning.”

“I miss you,” I said. “What time is it there?”

“Six o’clock. What time is it there?”

“Nine o’clock,” I said.

“That’s the way it goes,” he said.

After I got off the phone I went looking through my suitcase for something to wear. We were supposed to meet Max and Dorothea the following evening at some fancy restaurant in the Upper East Side and I wanted to wear something nice. My clothes from back home were nice, but they were a different kind of nice. I had a skirt I had spent days and days sewing patches on, made out of suede and corduroy, and it was the most spectacular thing I had ever made, but one look from the concierge and I knew I couldn’t wear that to the restaurant. I went to your grandpa’s suite. I was almost in tears. I cried, “I don’t have anything to wear!”

He stared at me. “You mean they lost your bag?”

“No they didn’t lose my bag,” I said, “but I can’t meet Max Ernst like this!”

He started laughing. “Tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll get you something tomorrow.”

The next day we went shopping. We went to Tiffany’s, we went to Cartier and Christian Dior. I felt just like Cinderella—or was it Audrey Hepburn? Your Grandpa Charlie wanted to buy me everything I saw, and I knew he meant well, but a Gucci gown wouldn’t do me very much good back home in the snow. You have one glamorous thing like that and it only serves to turn your pride for everything else—the simple things, the modest things—into shame.

Finally I let your grandpa buy me a long white dress for the party at the Consulate and a black jacket to wear to dinner, but I cut the labels off when I got back to the hotel. Later that afternoon we met Max and Dorothea in Chelsea to visit some of the galleries that were selling his work. He was so handsome and charming. He was in his eighties by then, but he carried himself with such grace and modesty. Dorothea was from the states, the southwest, and we talked about that for a while, but I think she was a little jealous of the attention Max was paying me. He had the most amazing sapphire blue eyes and shocking white hair. That whole week I never saw him wear anything but the same gray three-piece suit, and I remember his hands and his long, agile fingers.

We were near the Guggenheim, and Max asked if I wouldn’t like to see the show then. It would open the next day, and he said it’d be so much better now, without all the people, and if you’ve never seen the Guggenheim, it’s really quite something. There are no stairs, just a long, gently sloping ramp that starts at the top and spirals all the way to the bottom, and along the way you can veer off the main artery to the various rooms. We took an elevator to the top and looked down. You could see all his work, like a wreath wrapped around the walkway. He pointed to the ramp and said, “Enjoy the show.”

I walked down. He was one of the great influences of twentieth century art, and here was his lifework. I was conscious of what a moment this was and also of the discrepancies between his world and mine. It was a life I was looking at, a wonderful life, but not necessarily a better life. It was merely a matter of scale.

I was still reeling from the show by the time we went to dinner. I don’t remember where we went or what we ate, but I remember there was champagne, and I drank a lot of it. At one point I leaned over to Max and said I’d love to come to France and watch him paint. He smiled. “We can have a painting contest,” he said.

The next evening was the party at the German Consulate, and the morning after that I’d be flying home. That morning I tried calling your father but I had trouble getting through. I went for a walk in Central Park. I missed the trees a little. I stopped at a café on my way back to the hotel and had a cup of tea. I saw an advertisement for Max’s show on the side of a bus. I went back to the hotel to get ready for the party and I tried calling your father again. He sounded agitated and out of breath when he picked up the phone.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Don’t ask,” he said. “If you ask I might start telling you and I might not ever stop. I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s so cold. The power went out again and it’s still snowing and I’ve got a deposition to present tomorrow. The pipes froze last night. I guess I forgot to wrap them tight enough. It’s just getting dark now. It’s getting dark earlier and earlier,” he said.

“It’s been dark here for hours,” I said. I wanted to tell him how amazing it was here, the show, Max, how much I missed him, but he sounded so upset. It seemed selfish to tell him what a wonderful time I was having. “I miss you,” I said. “I’ll be home tomorrow around three or four, depending on the weather.”

“Alright,” he said. “Be safe.”

“I will. Stay warm.” I hung up the phone. Then I began to get ready for the party.

Max and Dorothea were waiting for us in the lobby of the hotel. “Oh my dear,” he said when he saw me, “you look just like a princess!” I had my hair up, and the long white dress that went down to my feet, and I was wearing these little black Chinese slippers. I’d put on makeup, probably the first time I’d worn makeup since my wedding, and I must have blushed terribly because Dorothea took my arm in hers. “Yes,” she said, “but I am the queen!”

The German Consulate sent a car for us, a big black Mercedes. When we arrived there was a throng of photographers waiting for us. I’d had no idea. We walked in, Dorothea and I on either side of Max, and he seemed very, very pleased with himself. Andy Warhol was there. Some other artists I only recognized later when I was told their names. No one had any idea who I was, but we were Max’s personal guests, so they assumed I had to be wealthy—a burgeoning artist somewhere, maybe a duchess or princess of some small Mediterranean nation. I fantasized about what they would say if they knew I’d come from a farm in Northern California, if they knew how poor I was.

It was all so flattering and misplaced and overwhelming that I was glad when we left. I was ready to go back home. Before I went up to my room I said goodbye to Max and Dorothea. I wouldn’t see them again. Max took my hand and kissed it. “It’s been a true pleasure,” he said, and I swear his blue eyes twinkled. “Remember,” he said, “you’re my future competition.”

Your Grandpa Charlie gave me a ride to the airport the next morning, and I flew out of New York around ten o’clock, and because of the time difference, you know, I arrived in San Francisco right around the same time. I picked up my car at an old friend’s house and began the five-hour drive back home. Around Redding it started snowing. I don’t know if you remember that car, a green 1963 Volkswagen Beetle, but it couldn’t go faster than forty miles an hour driving up those mountain passes.

I made it back to town and down the road, the main dirt road, until the car got stuck at the top of the drive and I had to walk the rest of the way with my suitcase. The house was cold and dark when I got home. Your father must have still been at work. I shoveled the walkway and made a fire. I took a bath and looked out the window, and realized suddenly it was the winter solstice. There was a break in the clouds, I could just see the sun setting over the Siskiyou range, and it lit up the falling snow like little baby jewels. It was beautiful, but before long it had set below the trees. The water in the bath had gone cold. Your father would be home soon, it’d be dark, and it’d be a long time before it got light again.