By age 43, I'd come up with many explanations for my perpetual strangeness with other people. - Then the autism diagnosis arrived.

SIX YEARS AGO, my now-husband, Sam, asked my father if he could marry me.

- Mary H.K. Choi

They sat in my dad's Volvo in my parents' driveway in San Antonio, Texas. It was raining. With Sam, my father would offer wisdom that was far more demonstrative and thoughtful than any insights he had ever shared with me. And even as I understood that transitive properties were at work and that my father loved Sam for loving me, I felt there was a closeness between them that I would never know. ¶ My father was a workaholic. Quick to anger. By the time my husband came along, he'd softened. He'd become gentle. He laughed easily. He'd started indulging in that old-man habit of incessantly humming. The first time he met Sam, he hugged him. I was appalled. This was a man who shook my hand in greeting even after months of separation as though I were a business associate whose presence he merely endured.

In the car, my father told Sam how happy he had made him. He said that Sam and I would build our lives brick by brick with intention and love and that we had all the time in the world because we were not beholden to anyone’s happiness but our own.

As they got out, my father stopped Sam before they returned to the house. He held out a business card in both hands to denote respect, honor, mutual care. “Just so you know,” he warned, “she has a difficult character. Please give me a call if there are any issues.”

“She who? Me?” I’d cackled later when Sam gave me the lowdown. “So, what, he’s giving you a manufacturer’s warranty? Who does he think he is, AppleCare?”

“Can you imagine if I actually called him?” my husband has since mused at various points in our marriage. “And how you would react?”