A LONG TIME AGO (Part 1)

Many years earlier, I sat atop the island of Capri, in the ruins of the home that once belonged to Emperor Tiberius, and considered my future.

It was a November afternoon and I'd hiked far carrying my lunch and a book in my daypack. Entirely alone with a vista of the startling blue Mediterranean Sea, I felt I'd been given a gift from God. A private peace with a private view of what I had only previously seen captured on canvases.

Tiberius, an unhappy emperor, abandoned the high-stakes, complicated life of Roman politics and exiled himself to live in this mansion. Some historians claim he was a terrific but moody general and others suggest he was well aware of the poisonings and stabbings orchestrated by his mother. This mixed-up fellow apparently tried to avoid responsible rule by partaking in acts of sexual perversion. As scandalous tales of his exploits hit the streets he jumped into a boat and paddled to Capri, where I now found myself contemplating life with a sicko back home.

I was fleeing a fiancé. There are bad men in the world and I was escaping one of them, a misogynistic doctor, and a cosmetic surgeon at that. It was the perfect combo: I was an actress engaged to a rich, successful man who could keep me looking darn good...forever.

A few months earlier he had flown to meet me in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I was playing Viola in a production of "Twelfth Night." On a night off, he took me to a fine restaurant and opened a small velvet box to reveal a large emerald surrounded by many, many diamonds.

I was a struggling actress. Easy math.

I moved out of my New York City apartment and he drove us to Toronto, where we planned to live for a few months while he prepared for his medical boards. We would then settle in Los Angeles, where I would pursue my acting career. My mother sighed in relief and my friends were envious.

On the drive north, I asked him an innocuous question about his work. He replied:

Are you really that stupid? Or are you just acting stupid because you’re an actress?

That was the first hairline crack in my snow-globe life with Dr. Nuts.

The speed of his transformation had me reeling. How could I have missed this cruelty? Was I so blinded by marrying a doctor and the dazzle of that ring? Was I so intoxicated by being chosen? Or was it the promise of security against the vagaries of a perilous acting career? Or was he just pathological?

At Martha's Vineyard I stayed up all night, wondering. How could I let this happen? How insecure was I? Perhaps I really was that stupid. And now found myself trapped at the halfway point.