Naturally, I was hungry for encouragement, yet I was not going to stumble over the disappointment of my father, Dr. Denning, or even Frank. Emotionally, I felt like a pioneer heading west; if the going got rough I could always turn back.

Denning carried through, and I got the three education courses concurrently. I also got a dose of boredom more excruciating than I had expected. There was nothing “entertaining” in the reading or in the papers I had to write. By the third week I was keeping a countdown calendar aimed at the end of the term. Three weeks before finals, I got the notice that my student-­teaching assignment for the spring was in Elkton, thirty miles from campus. I hadn’t looked forward to living away from Frank for even one term, but fortunately Elkton was close enough for me to commute.

That spring term went smoothly enough to convince me I had made the right decision. My supervising teacher was impressed enough with my scholastic record to give me her senior class—her “plum,” as she called it—instead of one of her sophomore classes. The class and I took to each other beautifully, and my “shrunken expectations” were revitalized when I discovered how enthusiastic and verbal many of the kids were. I worked them as hard as I worked myself, and the results were gratifying. I came home every evening bubbling with stories and anecdotes about my day. Even Frank began to concede that my decision had been a good one, that this change was what I needed.

“Since you’re adapting so well to change,” he said, “when are we going to make the big one?”

“Which is?”

“Change of name. From Rutledge to Mattison.”

“What comes with it?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just a man who can’t live without you.”

“In that case, I accept. I never could resist a worthy cause.”

“Bitch.” He grinned.

Before the wedding, we moved out of the apartment and into a house trailer. It was owned by a student in the History Department, who offered to let us live in it rent-free while he went off to study in Mexico. I was thrilled about the move, regarding it as another installment in the continuing adventure of changing my life. Since Frank had next to no furniture, there was very little to pack for making such a move. The first day after being set free for the summer, I decided I would take over the packing and organizing; Frank was preoccupied with the upcoming meeting where he would have to defend his thesis and with the preparation of materials and reading lists for the summer classes he would be teaching.

He was off at the library when I began the chore of packing boxes and crates and labeling them. My adrenaline was running high, so high that by mid-afternoon everything was squared away and ready to go, everything but the bed and the contents of Frank’s desk. I took a break with a cup of coffee and a few cigarettes and debated with myself whether or not I should go ahead and clean out the desk. Frank was extremely well organized, so there wouldn’t be any problem transferring his material. It was simple: each drawer would be assigned to a separate box. Still, I hesitated. The desk was Frank’s only private turf in the apartment, and I had never invaded it. I sat looking at it for quite a while, until I convinced myself it was silly to put him through the task while I had time on my hands.