We had a drive-through wedding. Rented a convertible for the day and packed a picnic. She wore a white baseball cap with a veil stapled to the back. Afterward we drove over the Hoover Dam and she stood and hollered as we crossed, her dress flying up around her waist, her lipstick worn off. She’d been divorced already, once. I used to kid her about it on our long-distance phone calls when we first started dating, but when I convinced her to move in—to leave her job and start over—she made me promise not to mention it again. I don’t want to be reminded of anything, she said, and I told her that’s why people got married.

Our daughter’s name is Leigh Ann. She was born with Down syndrome, and even though my wife didn’t say it, I could tell by the way she sniffed that she suspected my Midwestern genes. When she left me, she took Leigh Ann to her parents in New Mexico, where I would drive every weekend, spending awkward hours on their front porch with my baby in my lap. I put up in a motel nearby, and Monday morning I’d drive back to Las Vegas, the desert reaching out around me in every direction as if I were the center of something great. It used to make me feel like screaming, and sometimes I did, the windows down and the air rushing into my mouth.

She called the bar to let me know she was moving in with her boyfriend and taking Leigh Ann with her. I had a law school student who worked with me, paying loans with tips, get on the phone and tell her she had to let me know where they were going. She gave him an address, which turned out to be bogus, and I got on the highway to her parents’ house. They wouldn’t tell me where she was. They said I didn’t deserve to know.

The year after we were married, we had an apartment in Carson City. It was on the third floor, a railroad, one long hallway with a window at the end that opened onto a fire escape. Warm summer nights after I got off work, I would jump from the street to catch hold of the iron railing, pull myself up, and climb to our place. I thought it was romantic.