Gabrielle was five when she came out from NYC to stay with my brother (her father) and myself in my rickety old cliff-dwelling house* in Santa Monica Canyon.
*It was in fact the oldest frame house in the Canyon, famously documented in a history of Santa Monica, and I lived there before it was soon demolished to make way for gentrification, precipitating my move to Venice Beach. A long multi-tiered exterior stairs led from the street level (above the level of the house) and along its rear exterior, through jungle-like bushes and trees, down to a trail to the beach two or three blocks away.
