The presidential election ambushed their relationship ?I can?t live with a man who supports Donald Trump,? my mother said.
I held open the front door and took her suitcase from her as she stepped into my kitchen. It was 11 months after the presidential election and she was a youthful 73 in jeans and a sweatshirt, but there were dark circles under her eyes. I could tell she hadn?t slept.
?Dad does sound ignorant when he talks politics,? I admitted.
?That?s because he?s a moron,? she said.
I was a 45-year-old bachelor living in a first-floor apartment of a two-story brick building in New Jersey, 10 minutes from the house where I?d grown up. I?d relocated from Manhattan two years ago after I was laid off. Now, I was working for my father, an engineer who?d patented a green product. ?I?m going to stay with you until I find another place to live,? my mother said.
?Stay as long as you want,? I responded.
I felt awful. Married 50 years, she and my dad bickered like an old married couple in a 1950s sitcom. Mom was a former school business administrator who read the New York Times. Dad, 77, was a gifted inventor with no political acumen whatsoever. They raised my younger sister and me, shared a passion for opera and jazz, and traveled the world after retirement.

Trump?s victory ambushed their relationship. Dad had become strongly anti-government in the last 10 years. He backed the GOP unconditionally. Mom, a Hillary supporter, grew more frustrated with my father as the pr...