My parents' marriage limped along for a few years after that. Until one day I was sat down by both of them and informed that they were getting a divorce. Did I know what that meant? They explained that for various reasons, they could no longer live together in the same house, and would be moving to separate places. Apparently, their imminent separation was much more of a surprise for them than it had been for me, and they were very concerned that I understood what was happening.
     Oh, I got it all right. No more tense dinners or hissed comments, no more glaring stares or uneasy silence pervading the house, no more biting conversations or barely submerged hostility. Yeah, I got it, and “Thank God” was all I could think. It may have quite literally been the...

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