A little note from the not-to-be-mother-in-law. On notepaper from the Essex Inn in Chicago. Michigan and 8th streets. She says she's writing it on her lap (this is some kind of hardware convention, I think), and I almost read "laptop," before realizing... She's sending me a package.

I was a little afraid of her. I don't mean "afraid" in that she intimidated me in any obvious way. I was her (I think he was the youngest) son's choice in brides, and she accepted me lovingly. If I detect a note of something less than enthusiasm, perhaps that is because she found me as difficult to respond to as I found her. The only thing we had in common was our love for her son, and as history was to reveal, she was way one-up on me on that score - as one-up on me as I found her on many other scores. She was very nice. Me - not always so much. She was a devoted wife and mother. Me - not so much. She was devoted to her family - I was escaping mine. She was at home in the kitchen. I was at home in a library. I was having sex with her son. She was not allowed to know that. That, of course, would not be a thing we had in common anyway. Except for the occasional use of alcohol, she was my mother all over again. I would never become either one of them.

Or so I thought at the time.