It turns out my parents divorced when I was eight, yet never moved apart. In the misty corners of childhood, I recall a distant hum about their separation, but it felt flimsy, like a rumor lost in the fog. Everyone had two parents, I did too, so there seemed no reason to dig further.
Years later, after Id married, my wife revealed the truth. Apparently, when I was small, Mum and Dad fell out over a loan Dad had secretly taken out. Hed borrowed it for Granddads treatment, never telling Mum, and struggled to repay it. We were scraping by then, pennies stretched tight, nothing left over, and the banks calls would ring through the wallpaper threatening theyd reclaim our flat. So Mum filed for divorce. Dad resisted, but to avoid losing our home and to keep us safe, he agreed to go along.
Over time, Dad paid off the debt, set everything right, and Mum forgave his deception, but there was never time or urge for a second wedding. For decades I lived with them, never noticing a thing not even realising Mums documents said they were divorced.
My wife asked Mum one evening, in the dusky glow of the sitting room, why she wouldnt marry Dad again since they were always together. Mum replied, almost dreamily, that she couldnt be bothered with all the papers. Besides, theyd grown perfectly accustomed to their peculiar marriage.
Thats what I thought. Yet isnt marriage itself an odd invention? Nothing really forbids living as family, raising a child together. Without the ceremony, any troubles or mistakes touch only one person, not the whole family. Its like wandering through a half-lit English landscape, where the boundaries of togetherness are blurred and the old rites no longer dictate who belongs to whom.
