Ralph didn’t say anything when he got home from work and asked if I was ready to go. We started down the brick sidewalk of Dartmouth Street that led to the Back Bay T station, but he was walking too fast, and I asked him to slow down because I was wearing heels.

“I don’t understand why you had to dress like that,” he said ahead of me.

“You really need to be more tolerant,” I replied as I tried to catch him, when, without warning, he wheeled around to face me, his face ugly and gnarled in the near-darkness of early evening.

“This is a fucking curse!” he shouted.

I’d never seen Ralph angry; we’d never fought before. His voice, the expression on his face, left me so shocked I couldn’t move. The stripped branches of the trees above us suddenly felt like arms that threatened to strangle me.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry,” he said. He regained his composure and took my hand; it was only then that I could take a breath.

I tried to mentally prepare myself for our next public outing with his friends, and even told him I would dress as a boy. Another childhood schoolmate of his, the tenor Ian Bostridge, was making his Carnegie Hall debut, and Ian wanted us to join some of his friends for dinner at a restaurant afterward. Ralph reasoned that since we’d met Ian and his wife, Lucasta, in London, it would be too confusing for them to see me as a girl. I also didn’t want anything to distract Ian from his big night.