"Are you and daddy getting divorced?"
I was four years old, sitting on the bathroom floor and chatting with my mom while she soaked in the tub, when I blurted out this question. "No, of course not!" she immediately responded. "Why would you think that?" I don’t remember what I said next, but somehow we moved on to a new topic.
Later I heard her whispering on the phone about what I'd said. She must have been thinking,How did my little girl, the one with the stay-at-home mom and Catholic upbringing, know about divorce? It's not like my parents were screaming and slamming doors all the time. Their unhappiness wasn't supposed to be obvious, especially not to a little girl. But somehow, even at that young age, I could sense that my parents were deeply unhappy in their marriage.