LOS ANGELES: December, 2000 (Part 1)

William arrived home from Berlin right before Christmas. I met him at LAX and ran into his arms. We hung on to each other, laughing and kissing as if he'd been away at war. My concerns after our final dinner in Berlin were distanced by excitement and joyous anticipation.

I'd decorated his house for the holidays. As we drove slowly up the street, I glanced over to catch his reaction as he spotted the house, trimmed in icicle lights with a tree aglow in the window. He smiled and entwined his fingers in mine, and I decided this delight was worth every hazardous, one-footed reach I'd made from high atop a ladder to hang lights from the eaves.

We ventured into 2001 with me busy coaching on a television series while William worked on his movie. If my short film was going to make an impression at film festivals, I knew I would have to write a screenplay, sell it and attach myself as director. So I dialogue-coached in television during the day and at home labored on what would surely be a spectacular feature-film script.

I was independent, creatively energized and had a boyfriend. On weekends we took turns driving twenty miles across the city to stay at each other's places. As it turned out, the entertainment-industry strike was averted, and our hearts settled into more secure beats. Like the rest of the country, we didn't know we were living in a cocoon that would soon be ripped away.

One day we were driving home from a visit with William's parents...maybe this was the trigger. Trips back home to spend time with parents can do strange things to the head.

Listen, I launched, it would help me a lot — as in a great deal — when we socialize with your folks…if you actually joined in.

What do you mean?

I mean you go all monosyllabic around them. You give one-word answers and the conversation stops until, like some kind of court jester, I pick up the balls and start juggling.

Really?

Really. I'm all by myself asking about your dad's work and your mom's journey from Hong Kong to England to New York, where she met your dad, who had arrived there from South Carolina. I mean, an immigrant in South Carolina during the civil rights era...what was that like? And all that before having kids and moving across the country?

You know more about them than I do.

Don't you think there's something odd about that?

And then William changed it up.