An American Marriage

For the first time, Dre speaks. He and Celestial have moved in together—they live in the house Celestial grew up in, the house she shared with Roy during their marriage, the house next door to Dre’s childhood home. Dre recounts how he could not remember a time he did not love Celestial. “My affection for her is etched onto my body like the Milky Way birthmark scoring my shoulder blades” (95). Growing up, they had a closeness, like brother and sister (when Dre’s parents divorced, Celestial’s father assumed the role of Dre’s surrogate father). That closeness, Dre admits, had never translated into serious dating. After Celestial returned from Washington and matriculated at Morehouse, Dre introduced her to Roy, a frat brother. He knew immediately there was a spark: “They were good together” (102). Now, with Roy imprisoned, he is determined to make Celestial his wife, to make their relationship “legit, aboveboard” (108). It is not easy for him. Pursuing Celestial, for Dre, is like courting a widow, an emotionally vulnerable woman haunted by ghosts, uncertain over any new commitments.

Now, the day before Thanksgiving, Celestial shares with Dre the news of Roy’s early release. Dre planned to ask Celestial to marry him during her family’s holiday meal even though Celestial was legally still married to Roy. That night the two make love, and Dre spontaneously asks Celestial to marry him. She agrees and takes his ring.

The next day at dinner, Dre is uneasy over how to announce their engagement. The “pleasant racket” (118) of the dinner talk centers, of course, on Roy’s imminent release. Impulsively, after dinner, Dre pushes back from the table, stands “like a lighthouse” (120), and simply makes the announcement. The father bitterly objects: “Roy is a hostage of the state. He is a victim of America. The least you could do is unhand his wife when he gets back” (121). Celestial’s mother is not so sure, trusting her daughter to know her own mind.

The week before Christmas, Roy walks out of prison. His biological father offered “1,001 life lessons for the unincarcerated” (124). He cautions him that, after five years, life had moved on for those waiting for him: “Your woman has been in the world this whole time” (124). Big Roy alone meets him. During the drive back to Eloe, the father mentions Olive’s death. Roy cannot bring himself to tell his father of his friendship with his biological father. At dinner the father asks about Celestial. He states, “She didn’t divorce me” (129). He is haunted by her letter saying she could no longer be his wife—the rest of her letters he wadded up and flushed down his cell’s metal commode years earlier.

Now, Celestial speaks, but Roy chimes in, the two sharing the story of their first date. It was, she recalls, a vintage meet-cute. She was a fledgling artist, a doll maker just out of college with a BA in folk art and textiles. She struggled to find her niche and start her business, “Babydolls,” in the hip art scene in New York City; Roy was in town as part of a sales conference for his textbook company. These two lost souls far from home run into each other at a party. Initially Celestial is wary—she recognizes a cad when she sees one. Unable to find a taxi, Roy walks Celestial to her place—only to stumble on a burglar just leaving her apartment complex. Roy gives chase and confronts the burglar, but is kicked hard in the face, loosening a tooth. Although he does not get her belongings back, he becomes Celestial’s “hero” (145)—rather than seeking any immediate medical help or even the police, the two go to her tiny studio apartment where Celestial tends lovingly to his injuries. The delay costs him the tooth, but, as we learn much later, Celestial keeps the tooth in a small felt box in her jewelry case.