Chopped Eggs and Onions

His own mother had spoiled him, her first-born son and the only child of her seven to go to college and then to law school. My maternal grandmother, Rebecca, loved to spoil my father too—her tall son-in-law, whose blue-black hair led strangers to mistake him for her own handsome son.

“Save that piece for your father,” she would admonish us. “Go, put on lipstick,” she’d urge my mother. “Max will be home soon.”

Ignoring her, we would strip the crackling, garli