No sign of a man, or any other house pets. Also no hint of cigarettes or booze, unless Aunt Sally had a clever hiding place a six-year-old couldn’t reach. Not that I wanted either; cigars had their suggestive uses and a good pipe tobacco was practically potpourri, but cigarettes were vile things useful only as props, and at my current size one drink would put me under the floor. Linoleum and wall-to-wall carpet, by the way, in patterns I didn’t want to see in daylight.

The jazzy-looking wall clock said it was just after 5 AM, so even if Sally was a morning person, I had plenty of time to go through her purse. My last visit to an America had been about sixty years down the road, so at first glance I thought we must be pretty broke, but then some of my new memories met up with my old ones. Everything was cheap these days, and the dollar was still almighty, and a suburban housewife couldn’t even get credit cards in her own name.

Hang on. All evidence pointed to it being just me and Sally in the house. No man’s coats in the closet, no pictures of an absent or dearly-departed hubby, no pictures of family at all, which was downright peculiar for the era. We had a nice house, a car in the driveway, a decent amount of cash, and no man; how did Sally support us in a way that didn’t shock the neighbors, and how did she manage to pull off a solo adoption of Yours Truly? What had the Old Man set me up with?

I needed more memories.