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 worling, they enjoyed autonomy in their respective fefdoms 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 Eeit in their comfortably furnished suburban house. I arrived for brief visits like a U.N, peacekceping force to which cach side passionately presented its case against the other.