My parents never once said "I love you." But somehow, their marriage worked.

My parents never once said "I love you." But somehow, their marriage worked.

I never saw Mom peel her own shrimp. Dad worked through a small pile beside his food. He peeled each one and set them on her plate before he touched his own -- every time, like it was the first course. I thought that was normal.

Some nights, after dinner, Mom sat at the kitchen table with a small notebook. She kept track of the bills on one page and savings on the other in tiny, cramped columns. Dad dried the dishes behind her.

One day, I asked Dad how much we had. He glanced toward the kitchen table. "Ask Mom," he said. His paycheck went straight into the account every month. He never asked to see the balance.

When I was five or six, I asked Mom why she and Dad never held hands like couples on TV. "We don't need to. We show it in other ways." Then she went back to her notebook.

There wasn't a photo in our house of them touching. The closest one was on the shelf from their wedding day. They stood a foot apart -- and both looked at the camera instead of each other.

Every relationship I've been in, I've caught myself peeling her shrimp before I've touched my own. I still don't know if that was love -- or just something I picked up at the dinner table.