Bringing Home the British

My second wedding — this time, Vermont style. (My sister Kit, right.)

He had a British accent, and spoke around the stem of his pipe; he talked philosophy and politics, and when the topic called for it, he gave a dirty laugh, half French, with a twitch of his short mustache.

Mom loved him right away.

“I can really talk with this one,” she told me enthusiastically. “I never knew what to say to the other one.”

Dad, with pipe and ascot.

Dad didn’t have to tell me anything — he’d already drawn my new amour (who’d eventually become my second husband) into his study, and they were pulling books out of the shelves together. Approved.

I’m only telling the story now because it has finally occurred to me (late learner!) that this may reflect other people’s stories, too. And as I learn to forgive myself, maybe someone else can touch the thread and follow it to the same conclusion, as Curdie in The Princess and the Goblin (British children’s book) once chose to do.

Or Frodo, willing to give up everything in order to destroy The One Ring. (Yes, British again.)

How the Journey Began

I adored my father. His first child, shaped in his image despite the difference in gender, I followed…