This memory of Janice is odd, important only in it remaining as vivid as if it had been this morning. And it requires context. Owen, age 10, was out in the yard in Bucks Harbor [Maine], shirtless and barefooted , wearing shorts and holding a pole, in just this pose, when a friend drove up and said, Owen looks exactly like a painting of Jamie Wyeth. I looked the painting up, of course, and the child is named Cat Bates. Grown up and a jewelry maker.

Now jump to Janice and me taking him and Simon down to Castine, Maine to see the arrival in the harbor of the replica of Lafayette’s ship Hermione visiting the town. The town had organized itself for the day with great festivity and generous hospitality. Castine is a deep water port, and the the town square adjoins the pier. It was ringed with food vendors, and radiating from it were little foot streets with other vendors. The boys and I were getting food in the square and Janice went exploring. Sudddenly she shot into the square at almost a gallop, into that crowd of people milling around, her eyes wide and that beautiful hair flying out behind her. When she spied us she shouted ‘I jUST MET CAT BATES!’ She was in all color and movement, and it was like a movie suddenly going from black and white to color. This was a merry crowd, in no way drab…..but somehow, compared to Janice, they all WERE. So we went and met Cat. No longer blonde, but still skinny and long limbed, and I swear he still stands the way he does in this paintings. We bought Owen a medallion on a leather thong, and Cat seemed to take great pleasure in the encounter. Simon was little, and was a bit bored at it all. This memory remains so very vivid, and so very dear to me.