Jonny Diamond
Please choose one question from each of the following sections. Your answers will allow for safe and secure identity verification and/or password retrieval, should your account information become compromised.
Section 1
a) What was your mother’s maiden name?
b) What was your mother’s nickname in the sixth grade?
c) What did your mother do with the pain of being called such a thing, again and again?
d) What were your mother’s first thoughts after she gave birth to you, thoughts she buried deeply for her entire life?
e) What would you give now, to know those thoughts?
Section 2
a) What was the name of the street you grew up on?
b) What did your neighborhood say about the success (or lack thereof) of your father?
c) What did you see that day, sitting in Mr. Steiger’s tree?
d) What is the happiest memory you have of your father?
e) Why was your mother so angry when she caught you and Heidi Steiger together in the closet?
Section 3
a) What was the name of your seventh grade teacher?
b) What did she smell like?
c) What do you feel every time you catch even the faintest trace of that scent?
d) What did you feel when the Steigers moved away the summer before eighth grade?
e) What did your mother feel?
Section 4
a) What is the name of your father’s city of birth?
b) What did he lose there as a boy that he never found again?
c) What was it you loved about bringing him beer in the garage?
d) Why didn’t he ask you to stay while he drank them?
e) What did you see that your father couldn’t?
f) Wouldn’t?
Section 5
a) In what town or city did your mother and father meet?
b) Did anybody think they had a chance?
c) What was it your father said that convinced your mother to marry him?
d) What is the happiest thing you remember about your mother and father together?
e) Was it that day by the river when you threw your father’s new tennis shoes into the water to watch them float like boats and at first he was mad but then your mother calmed him down and they shared a laugh and for the first time you realized you might not be the center of the entire universe and that realization came as a relief to you?
Section 6
a) What happens to love over time?
Section 7
a) What was the name of your favorite high school teacher, senior year?
b) Why did you go to college so far from home?
c) What did you say to your mother, her voice so small on the phone?
d) How did you know your father was already dead?
e) Why weren’t you sad?
Section 8
a) What was the name of your first boss?
b) What was it about the light in the break-room that put roses in her eyes and diamonds in her hair?
c) What did your mother whisper in her ear at the wedding?
d) What did she whisper in your ear at the funeral?
e) Are you going to look for him?
Section 9
a) Why can’t you answer these?
b) Why won’t you?
[SUBMIT]
Jonny Diamond is a writer/editor who splits his time between NYC and the Hudson Valley. More of his work can be found here, and you can follow him on Twitter here.
