Sleep was obviously not coming, so I tried to untangle the knot of fears and hurts and memories in my head. As far as I could decipher, there were three major threads creating this mess: Richard Winslowe, Daphne Winslowe, and Their Divorce. I forced myself to think about this mess, about the events leading up to their split—memories I’d locked away years ago and never allowed myself to revisit. My spirit bucked like a spooked colt; I nearly ran to the living room to watch TV and give my mind something else to do. But I forced myself to stay put and examine the events and people that were threatening to ruin one of the best things that had ever happened to me.

My parents had been married young, while Mom was still in law school and Dad was working sixty hours a week to establish himself. Babies hadn’t been in the plan, and I grew up hearing how inconvenient the timing was and how many sacrifices my mom had been forced to make to be the Supermom she thought she had to be—“but of course it was worth it for you, honey!” For twenty years my dad was a workaholic who never made it to my school musicals or choir performances because of “last minute issues,” but my mom made it to every single one “even though the briefs/the witness lists/the first draft of the closing arguments are due in the morning and I’ll have to stay up till 2:00 to get them done.” She never let me forget how much effort it took for her to be a mom and a lawyer, and I grew up wondering which she’d rather be if she had to choose. I never asked because I was afraid how she might answer.

My senior year of high school our family unraveled. My father was promoted and went from working sixty hours a week to working eighty and traveling every other week. But my mom became convinced that the traveling was a cover-up for an affair. She obsessed about it, going through his drawers and closet and meticulously picking apart his cell phone bill, although I don’t think she even knew what to look for. Then one afternoon I came home from school to find her screaming into the phone that she was onto him and that she’d ruin him if he didn’t straighten up. She nearly dropped the phone when she finally noticed me standing there, abruptly hung up, and began making dinner as if she hadn’t just destroyed my tender teenage psyche. I went out to my car and drove to a nearby forest preserve, where I sobbed and listened to the radio for three hours before driving home in the dark. She’d gone to bed and left my dinner on the kitchen table.