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AFTER LEGAL AID, I made the mistake of taking a nap at the motel. When I woke up the room was dark and there was talking and laughing coming from nearby. The air smelled like cigarette smoke, and I didn’t know where I was. Then an eighteen-wheeler started up outside, its driver revving it until something metal began to rattle. I switched on the bedside lamp and read my watch: almost nine. I lay back down and took a deep breath that made me shudder, but I refused to cry. I concentrated on a brown water stain on the ceiling, and listened to the early drinking crowd at the truck-stop bar next door, and remembered the spring before last, when both our families gave us a going-away party at my brother’s house in East Boston. Frank had taken the afternoon off from his car dealership in Revere, and he was still dressed in a gray double-breasted suit with a loud silk tie. He was big and handsome, his black hair moussed back. There were forty or fifty people there, just relatives and in-laws, and they filled all three floors of my brother’s house. It was a party with no cocktails or beer—my mother-in-law, mother, and aunts made sure of that—not even red wine to go with the veal and sausages and spaghetti. Most of the older women stayed in the kitchen, where they warmed the food and kept telling each other the right way to cook. All the little kids were on the first floor, where the Ping-Pong table and dartboard were, and because it was a Saturday in March, most of the uncles and guy cousins sat in the family room watching basketball on Frank’s wide-screen TV. One or two were out on the second-floor deck with Nick, wanting to hear about the new job. I was standing in the doorway of the kitchen with Jeannie, sipping a coffee before dinner, my eyes on Nick out on the deck. I could see the huge Mystic Bridge behind him, the gray clouds, the skyscrapers of Boston. We were a few days from spring and it was warm enough that I didn’t wear a coat. My new husband was standing there in a bright yellow cashmere sweater and black jeans, smoking a cigarette and flicking the ash into his Coke can. He was nodding his head at something one of his cousins was saying, and I felt so much love for him right then my eyes filled up and Jeannie put her hand on my arm and asked what’s wrong, K? What’s the matter?

Later, Frank led everyone out of the house to the driveway and the shiny red Bonneville. There was a wide white ribbon running from the front bumper over the roof and into the trunk. And somebody had taped to the driver’s window a huge card both families had signed, though I knew the car was from Frank, a low-mileage sales bonus he usually took for himself but this year gave to us. One of the uncles videotaped us climbing inside, then backing out for a test drive. We didn’t want a big American car, though; we were planning to buy something small. But on the drive west we kept it on cruise control the whole way and steered with two fingers. When we weren’t talking, we stretched out and played cassettes till one of us needed to crawl into the backseat and lie on the maroon upholstery with a pillow and blanket and go to sleep.