My parents' marriage was, it's safe to say, less than happy. They stayed together for the sake of their children and for want of hope that divorce would make them any happier. As long as my father was working, they enjoyed autonomy in their respective fiefdoms of home and workplace, but after he retired, in 198I, at the age of sixty-six, they commenced a round-the-clock performance of No Exit in their comfortably furnished suburban house. I arrived for brief visits like a U.N, peacekeeping force to which each side passionately presented its case against the other.