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marriage fell into an abyss of alcoholism and violence, she had no one to whom she could turn. She had grown up in a reclusive household, cut off from a social world of any kind. It wasn’t a stressful childhood, she insisted. They lived off the farm and ate, mostly, off the land. Mary Ellen’s mother and father had lived in orphanages throughout their childhood. They met while working at a New Jersey silk mill. They were thirteen. Mary Ellen said the household was loving and caring.
    Mary Ellen’s dad was the stereotypical 1950s male provider. All through her years of school, Mary Ellen never had a boyfriend. She was intimidated by boys and had no time for them. Mom had surgery to repair a herniated disc when Mary Ellen was five and the doctors severed a nerve, which paralyzed one of her legs. “She came home in leg braces,” Mary Ellen recalled. The old type: leather and steel, like Forrest Gump’s. She also wore a back brace and had to walk with crutches. It lasted a year. Even though she was young, Mary Ellen helped her mother around the house. “What got my mother through all those tough times,” Mary Ellen added, “was her faith in God. I asked her later, ‘Why did you never get hopelessly depressed?’ She said, ‘I didn’t have time for that. I had four little kids who needed me.’ She was just amazing. Her faith is what got her through.”
    II
     
    Mary Ellen described herself as a “painfully shy” high-school student. But it wasn’t necessarily growing up in such an isolated environment at home that turned Mary Ellen into such an introvert. At thirteen, she learned she suffered from a form of scoliosis, which, in high school, began to curve her small vertebrae. Because of it, she started high school in a full-body brace. Luckily, “the brace prevented me from becoming a full hunchback”—yet it also prevented her from being active socially. “It added to my shyness…. If you have a mother who rarely leaves the house, you don’t learn social skills. You don’t know how to behave in the world.”
    What made matters worse was that Mary Ellen’s father was on the road, traveling for work. He’d be gone a month and home for a weekend and gone again. Mary Ellen’s high-school English teacher encouraged her to write. Her teacher suggested college, majoring in creative writing. But, Mary Ellen said, it was a time when the men went out into the world, educated themselves, and took care of the family financially, while the women stayed at home with the kids. So she enrolled in Seton Hall University and figured she’d pursue her dream in small doses. Tragedy struck, however, and derailed even that modest ambition. Her father was involved in an auto accident that had almost killed him. Then he had a stroke. He was forty-eight. For two years he was recovering at home, unable to work.
    By the time her father got back on his feet, college was no longer an option for Mary Ellen. The money was gone. Plus, she had what was considered then to be a fairly good job for a girl as a service rep for the local telephone company, a job she had taken after high school to help out with the bills around the house.
    Still, things were OK. Mary Ellen believed that helping her family was more important. Her Catholic education had taught her that life was worth living only when you helped others.
    Be a servant of the Lord. It was the only way. The Catholic way.
    “Even though I loved to write, I saw myself as a mother and a homemaker, just like my mother.”
    Be grateful for what you have, not what you don’t. God had chosen Mary Ellen’s path. She was fine with it.
    III
     
    Her parents kept a short leash on Mary Ellen when it came to dating. “Wrapped in tissue paper,” she described that time frame, from the first day she left the house for kindergarten until she graduated. Even after high school, she wasn’t one to go out looking for boys to date or even hang around with friends. She lived under a system: work,