There she met several black-garbed former wives and shared with them the surprise of watching a small, heavily veiled, extremely old woman take the widow's seat of honor. Missing and denied parents are so routine as to be the backbone of mystery novels. I have a cousin who was raised by her father and aunts. Her mother, they said, was dead. When my cousin was almost thirty years old, she was informed that her mother had been living, until her death the previous day, in a mental hospital.
Illness is an excellent cover for deceit.
Pure joie de vivre induced a former friend of mine to convince the press room crowd at a Democratic National Convention that she was writing for a news syndicate, when in fact she was being paid to hang little bags containing deodorant samples on the hotel room door handles of the delegates. Romance, involving as it does promises of trust and commitment, is the surest route to self-deception, especially if the lure is adventure. One friend, believing herself to be part of a corporate partnership gone personal, flew to an exotic foreign land, bearing wedding rings for two and a business plan forever. Another adventurous pal married a man who claimed he had just gotten out of prison, where he was serving time for murder. It only took a year or two for her to discover that none of it, except the drug part, was true, including the part about the prison term for murder.