My parents always called Jim Betty’s friend, right up until the day she got married to someone else. By then the two of us had an apartment together, and at the reception my mother introduced us as simply, “Henry and Jim.” Not friend or roommate, just Jim—in those days, no one felt compelled to define us further. My mother treated him like one of the family when we visited, and that was all I wanted. Let her believe we slept in separate bedrooms, if that’s what she needed to think to welcome him into her home.
We bought this house in ’64; the market was good and the realtor didn’t question both our names on the mortgage. Jim was in college at the time, working nights at the packing plant just to pay his half of the bills. We had plans for the house—I wanted a large garden and Jim loved to
