I was too young when this picture was taken to eavesdrop. But Grandma’s kitchen, shown in the picture, had the listening device that I would later use. There was an air vent in the ceiling that opened into our kitchen directly above.

Lying on the floor with my head over the vent I could hear and – with some restrictions – also see what was taking place down below. It was better than television! Mother, however, didn’t think so and made me leave my listening post whenever she caught me.

My grandparents’ arguments were very loud, and I think I remember that Grandpa threw things. Their marriage was a smoldering fire that flared up from time to time and then died down again. It never died out completely. In retrospect, I have often called their life together “The Sixty Years’ War.”

As long as I can remember Grandma and Grandpa had slept in separate bedrooms. (Her bedroom door is right behind her in the picture, to the left of the radiator.) Near the end of their lives, they were both in the hospital at the same time. The nurses asked Grandma if she would like to share a room with her husband. (A nice idea, actually.) Grandma replied, “I haven’t shared a room with him for years. And if I didn’t want to sleep in the same room when I was healthy, I certainly don’t want him around when I’m sick!”

I often wondered why Grandma and Grandpa hadn’t gotten divorced. Was it because it was a shameful thing to do in those days? Was it because of Grandma’s Catholicism which says that marriage is indissoluble? It didn’t appear to be love, considering the way Grandma and Grandpa treated each other and the tone that Grandma used when talking about Bloomy, as she and her family called him. Had Grandma’s family not approved of her marriage to Bloomy? Did she feel she had to prove something to them?

Keeping up appearances was important to Grandma. She had learned that from her mother. “If anyone asks how we are, tell them we’re fine,” Grandma reported her mother instructing her. “Even when we’re sick.”