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gift had been a copy of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre , which I had already finished by the time Mother died.
    I think of my years in school after Mother’s death, from the ages of thirteen to seventeen, as a vast black hole into which I fell. It was a great shock to find such abysmal ignorance on every hand. Even my teachers were failures in my eyes. Yet I longed for morning to come so that I could leave my grandparents’ house and walk—more often I ran—the seven blocks to L. K. Drake Junior High School and later the twelve blocks to Latham County High School. My grandparents lived in a small town near Corning, New York, called Marshland. I feel a constriction in my throat at the very mention of the town. I left Latham County High School the fall of my senior year and never graduated, though much later I took the GED examination, parts of which I thought to be almost insultingly elementary, and passed it, thus earning a high school diploma. Circumstances did not allow me to attend college, but more of this later.
    Second, I will speak briefly of my marriage, which at times has astounded even me, for I am certain that a more unlikely match than that between Thomas Tuttle and me has never been legalized. One day eleven years ago, in the fall of 1984, Thomas appeared in the school cafeteria to borrow my house key, for he had locked himself out of our duplex. Francine, Vonnie Lee, and Algeria gaped openly at him, and after he left Vonnie Lee said, “Don’t tell us that man’s your husband .” I looked at her evenly and replied, “As it is none of your concern, I would prefer to tell you nothing at all about the man. However, lest your speculation distract you further from your work, I will tell you that he is indeed my husband.”
    Francine threw up her hands and said, “Now, if that’s not something else! Here we been wondering all this time what in the world your husband’s like, and here he is just a plain man in overalls.” Algeria asked how long we had been married, a question I chose not to answer, though it had been almost six years at the time, and Francine asked if he repaired vacuum cleaners, a question no doubt inspired by the hand-painted words Tuttle’s Vacuum Cleaner Service on the side of his pickup truck, which he had parked directly outside the large rear windows of the cafeteria. Vonnie Lee remarked, “He sure looks a whole lot older than you,” an observation to which I did not reply.
    Indeed, my three co-workers were in such an agitated state of curiosity that they whispered among themselves and cast sidelong glances at me the rest of the day. I might have been a carnival exhibit. From the pantry I overheard Vonnie Lee say later that day, “Don’t you just wonder if Margaret loves that man?”
    The truth was that I had been clear with Thomas on this fact from the beginning. I had told him that I would not marry him for love, that I was not seeking a romantic liaison, that indeed I did not want such a relationship with any man. He had pinched his chin several times before inhaling deeply and releasing his breath slowly and audibly. At last he had responded, “Well, all right, then, Rosie, if you’ll just keep up with the main course of washin’ and cookin’, I reckon I can forgo some of the side dishes.” Thomas has a colorful style of speech. I have often wondered whether he thought that I really meant what I said or whether he was gambling on the notion popular among men that what a woman says and what she means are often strangers one to the other. Whatever he thought, he was soon to discover that my word was good.
    And now I have raised another question, have I not? You are likely wondering why Thomas called me Rosie when my name is Margaret. Again, I will settle the matter quickly. When Thomas and I first met over sixteen years ago, I had a hammer in my hand and was making my way down an aisle toward