“Why is your nose always in a book?” Carla chided. “You think you’re better than anyone else but you’ll never get where your father has and he never even finished school.”

“I don’t want to be where he is! I’m not him! Why are you always comparing me to him? He’s what he is and I’m what I am. That’s simple enough, isn’t it?”

“Don’t talk to me like that! While you’re living in this house, you owe us respect.”

There it was—family talk was always in words of commercial transaction. Children owed parents respect; children paid back what was done for them by studying hard and leading good lives; children had to capitalize on their talents; doing so bore dividends in life; you didn’t go around with certain people because there was no profit in it. The family motto could have been “Money Talks.”

Then there was religion. For Marguerite her family’s religion was like their fireless fireplaces, without warmth or comfort or honesty. Just show.

“You won’t have good luck in life,” her mother prophesied when she stopped going to mass. “That’s why you’re unhappy.”

Carla Scalzo put in her time in church just in case the Last Judgment, rewards, punishments, and all the rest did turn out to be true. Besides, like the other family women she liked the tangibility of a rich and powerful organization that looked after immediate earthly functions so well. Weddings, baptisms, and funerals were taken care of with really impressive ceremonies. The day her sister Pina’s daughter married outside the Church in a second-rate service without candles or flowers on the altar, all the women wept at the visible signs of disgrace.

It seemed as if Marguerite would never marry. She had gone to college costing Sam a pile of money, which brought him nothing in return, for after four years as a misfit (“Someday you’ll find your place in the world,” her place-card at the Senior Banquet read) Marguerite still had not found her place, which should have been marriage. She came home to Gloversville and got a job at the library.

“Maybe you should go to business school,” her mother said. “Or at least go out and have some fun.”

“I don’t want to go out.”

“What are you going to be, Marg, an old maid?” Sammy laughed.

“No,” she said, out of the blue, “I’m going to marry a poet.”

“So impractical.” Her mother shook her head in disgust.