Our blue-collar town of Hitchcock, Massachusetts, was known in 1959 as the textile leader of the northeast. Most of the residents in our neighborhood, commonly referred to as “The Knoll,” worked in the mills along the canals and devoted their free time to the workings of St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Ma’s affair with our parish priest was known to nearly everyone in our Irish Catholic community, except Dad. Making sure he didn’t find out was just one of Ma’s many secrets she expected me to keep. When Dad was  diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease and Ma ran away, I was convinced her alcoholism was the reason for her actions.
It wasn’t until after her death, four years later, that I found out the alcoholism was only a symptom of the pain she suffered as a result of the family we never knew she had.