My mother was a closet romantic. When she found out about my father’s secret life, she hired a private detective to hunt down a boy who had doted on her at New Trier High School and who went on to play utility infielder in the Cubs’ farm system for several years before buying into an AMC dealership in Elk Grove. She was constantly breaking up and furiously reuniting with this man in semi-public places, all but begging my father to put an end to it. My father rose lovingly to the bait, time and again.
