He worked long, late hours (time that, as it turned out, was punctuated with a series of mistresses, women whose identities blurred furry into a string of pronouns and epithets—her, she, that one, that bitch, your whore. I’d hear my parents argue in raw hushed tones, my mother making a show because propriety demanded it. In truth, she expected more integrity from the jars of preserves in her pantry). For a man given to 60-to-80-hour work weeks, my father’s home was less his castle and more his weekend office.
