In May of 1971, despite our lack of money, my mother decided she would take my brother, sister, and me on a vacation to Catalina Island. I was seven then, the youngest by a few years. I remember a weekend morning at our home in Ventura, California, overcast outside as it so often seemed to be in the years after my father had left, my mother sitting at our kitchen table surrounded by an ingratiating half circle of glossy brochures provided by her travel agent. Each was a colorful fable featuring attractive families — complete with a mother and father — walking hand in hand on the beach, the sky overhead an unimpeachable azure. Beneath them, the golden sand gleamed. Fun, slick, fraudulent, these brochures featured burnt-orange or avocado-hued rooms with neatly made beds and spectacular views of Catalina’s rich blue bay of Avalon.