My Secret Husband
I couldn’t appease my mother by marrying my boyfriend — mostly, because I already had
“He seems so nice,” she said while I was visiting. “Why doesn’t he ask you to marry him?”
“Mom,” I groaned. “I’m not a Barbie doll sitting around hoping Ken will pop the question. We’re equal partners. If we want to marry, we’ll decide together to marry.”
This wasn’t exactly a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth. The story of our romantic relationship was more complicated. As I helped my devoutly religious mother make up two beds in two rooms on two different floors of my childhood home — no daughter of hers would “live in sin” under her roof — I wondered how to break the news to her. I was a rebel without a cause. I was an unconventional conformist. I was outwardly resisting a tradition while secretly upholding the institution.
What I’m trying to say: I was married.
Let me explain.
The summer of 1974, I graduated from high school, turned 18 and, with money earned at the mall, bought a round-trip ticket to Switzerland. I had a vague six-month plan to “see Europe.” Three-plus years later, I was back in the United States for the first time. I hadn’t seen my family in as many years. We’d spoken only once. In those pre-internet, expensive…
