He eased toward the car. The Reverend’s head was hanging down. His robe was open, the bottle was in his lap, and his face was in his hands. His entire body began to shudder.

So before they come to break down the door, the singer bemoaned, forgive me, Delilah, I just couldn’t take anymore.

Frankie would wait until the song was over, wait until the Reverend had stopped crying. But he was more tired than patient, and time was running out. They were coming. And whether it was going to be beautiful or tragic, tomorrow or ten years from now, home was where he wanted to be when they arrived.

Getting Heavy with Fate

1965

You don’t know who I am, Teresa writes. We’ve never met. That was Dermot’s doing.

The candle on the plate next to her hand is a votive, caving in on itself like a little melting Colosseum of wax. The walls of the room—a room that triples as living room and dining room and bedroom—are an ashy avocado, more gray in this light than green. I don’t hate him, she writes. She scratches through the sentence, tears off the page, and starts again: You don’t know who I am. We’ve never met.

She wants to be direct. She wants to sound—to be—smart, to fill the page with evidence that she is a smart young woman, a scholar, that there is nothing irresponsible or gold-digging about her. I’ve just completed a course in art appreciation. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Ragazzino, you don’t know who I am. We’ve never met. But I’m your daughter-in-law, Dermot’s wife, and I’ve just completed a course in art appreciation. I’m taking another course in American poetry now, and have received an A on my first test. Enclosed are pictures of your grandchildren, Matthew, 5, and Mary-Katherine, 2. For a likeness of me, please see Watteau’s Ceres.

It’s important to be clear about it all. Articulate. Factual.

Matt and Katherine share the bedroom opposite the little kitchen. Between Matt’s single bed and Katherine’s crib is a path so narrow, Teresa brushes both sides when she turns around between them. Sometimes, coming into their room late at night to check on them, she finds Matt’s smooth white arm stretched out in sleep, his little fist closed around one of Katherine’s crib posts like a tether. They feel too warm at night. The apartment is on the top floor of the building; inches above their ceiling is a long rectangle of black tar that soaks up the heat during the day and drips it down into the apartment after dark.