That Sunday my wife, Trish, had gone to Mass without me as usual. As much as I wanted our marriage, our family, to be close again, I still couldn’t bring myself to go back to church regularly. Not after everything that had happened.
On her way home, Trish had picked up The Philadelphia Inquirer. I sat at the kitchen table with her and glanced at the front page. January 20, 2008. The presidential primaries were in full swing; the country was in a recession.
My concerns were closer to home. A year earlier, I’d moved back in, after being separated from Trish for five years. I was grateful to be home again, but there still seemed to be a barrier between me and my wife and our children. After all we’d been through—all I’d put them through—I wanted to put the past behind us. How else would we be able to move on with our lives?