During our four decades together, my wife and I raised two children, held full-time teaching positions, cared for our aging parents, and mourned their deaths. We lived in many houses in many states before settling in a home in Cape Cod. We also published over 20 books between us. And here is the one thing that set us apart from other writer couples we knew: We never read each other’s work.
We made this pact early on, and our agreement endured. But when the pact was broken in 2019, our marriage ended.
We were never competitive; the opposite, in fact. I cheered when her novels received laudatory national reviews. She celebrated my fellowships and academic appointments.
