“The wedding itself was hilarious. We were all stoned by then. My father was drunk and my mother was crying. They’d got this rent-a-rabbi who came running in on his way to something else and was in a big hurry. We were all barefoot and Carlotta had been eating licorice. She read somewhere that it prevents infections. It made her mouth black. The rabbi stood in front of the fireplace and we stood in front of him. He didn’t have the right glasses and he stepped back to try to see what he was reading and knocked over this potted plant my mother keeps there in the summer. We all started to giggle and he had to start all over. Then he ran through it so fast we didn’t know what was happening, and then he was popping into his coat, grabbed the money from my father, and ran out the door. Every time I looked at somebody I had to laugh. It was one of those days.” Sam sighed cheerfully and ate another cookie. I sighed, too.

“It sounds pretty strange.”

“It was strange all right. I was sure glad to get back to my little house in the trees. I’ve definitely decided I don’t want to have anything more to do with New York. I want to live very simply and quietly in the woods and just have my friends around me. My father gave me a thousand dollars and Carlotta’s mother sent a thousand. We ought to be able to do something with that. Did you see that article in the paper about the hermit up in the Siskiyou Mountains? It seems he has six kids and he lives up there with them and his wife on nothing but their garden and a few animals. The school board keeps trying to give them trouble because the kids don’t go to school. But when they gave them tests to measure their educational level, they were so far ahead of the normal grade level for their age. He and his wife both have a couple of college degrees and teach the kids themselves.”

I could feel how happy it made him, thinking of it.

“There was a picture of the whole family in the paper. They really looked fine. They delivered all their babies themselves and none of them have birth certificates.”

There was a rattling down the block. Carlotta came into sight pushing a shopping cart full of paper bags. She walked slowly, leaned back a little, and stretched her arms out past her belly to reach the handle of the cart. She wore the same red dress and the same gray shawl over her dark hair, which fell loose around her shoulders. Her legs spread wide as she walked. She held no expression. Sam watched her curiously.

“Do you think she’s ugly, pregnant?”

“No. Not at all.”