David seemed to have a lot going on in his life. He was always reading or tapping away on his portable typewriter. He published an article, his first, in a small New York magazine, which pleased him a lot, though, he told me, it paid him all of twenty-five dollars. He never asked me to read it. Every Sunday he drove me up to see my kids.

One day David told me that, through an acquaintance of his on the Arkansas Gazette named Jerry Neil, he had arranged for us to see a lawyer in Batesville to get regular visitation rights for me, so that I wouldn’t be under sufferance of Van’s parents. The lawyer, Herbert Samson, was able to persuade the court to give me two weekends per month visitation, and a full month in the summer. I was very happy. I don’t know how much the lawyer charged. Da- vid paid the bill, and told me that I could pay him back later, which of course I never did.

Maybe I should be put up for chairwoman of the Unplanned Parenthood Association, but one morning not long after this I woke to dis- cover myself with morning sickness, which in my mind could mean only one thing: pregnancy. I used a diaphragm, but something or other about it obviously didn’t work. I faced the pros- pect of telling David that he was about to be a father, and without the least certainty about how he would take it.

Credit where credit is due, he took it well. He didn’t do the stupid thing and ask if I were sure the baby was his, which it was. He didn’t suggest my looking into getting an abortion. He only asked me if I was certain I was pregnant. I told him I knew my body and there could be no mistake. “We’ll get married,” he said, “as soon as possible.” Then he added: “My father will of course disown me, but maybe not forever.”

“What for?” I asked.

“For marrying a gentile,” he said. “No one in our family has ever done so.”

“Is he that religious?” I asked.

“He’s an atheist,” David said, “but that doesn’t matter. It’s complicated. I’ll explain it to you some day.” He never did.

We bought our two silver wedding rings from a small Jewish man named Kleiderman, who had a modest shop on Main Street and 6th. That same day we drove over to city hall, and were married by a justice of the peace, a kindly man who took a few minutes out to lecture us on the sacredness of marriage. I was touched by what he said, and so I think was David. When we came out of city hall, married, he had a park- ing ticket. Not, some might say, a good omen. And yet my marriage to David lasted almost nine years, much longer than either of my first two marriages.