They were the best of friends, but the worst of enemies. My husband and his brother would become like tigers fighting for turf or for female companionship. And they would never stop. I liked it when we first met because, of course, my husband, then my roommate's friend, fought for the right to sit beside me at the dinner table, to talk to me, and would find all sorts of ways to stop his brother from any contact.

He didn't have to do that. I didn't like his brother much. They looked exactly alike, although there were 10 months between them. But my husband (I can't really think of him in any other way) had a powerful look in his eye. He looked deep into your eyes, with intensity, and although I could never see how he looked at his brother, I think there was also rage there.

The day his brother left my son in the back seat of his car, and went into the liquor store, when he was three years old, was the day my husband's anger raged the most. When he returned home, finally, after the police called, and informed us of the ordeal my son went through, my husband was beside himself. He paced back and forth and back and forth, just waiting for my brother-in-law to get home. The police had my son and had returned him home a bit earlier. He wasn't the worst for wear, and found the whole incident rather exciting. "I got to ride in a police car, mommy!" he said as soon as he saw me.

When my brother-in-law came home, my husband tore into him with an anger I had never seen, and I had seen a lot between them. That was when he told him to leave our home and never come back. I was relieved, because of the affair, of course.