An American Marriage

Dre now shares the memory of when he and Celestial first make love. They drive to Eloe to attend the funeral of Roy’s mother. The service is emotionally draining. Celestial performs “Jesus Promised Me a Home.” “Singing, she wounded and healed both” (149). Big Roy is devastated. At the cemetery, he refuses to leave without attending to the burial itself. He does not want the cemetery’s work crew to bury his wife; rather, he shovels the heavy wet dirt into the open grave himself: “This is personal. Just me and my wife” (152). After the service, Celestial and Dre go to a bar. Celestial drinks too much and in an unguarded moment confesses to Dre how tired she is of being alone, of her in-laws, of Eloe itself. Prison, she admits, was never supposed to be part of her life. Back at the hotel, when Dre walks Celestial back to her room, he steps in. When he hears the click of the hotel door, he knows what will happen. Their lovemaking is soothing: “We didn’t fall into each other’s arms like in a movie […] We came to each other with joy on our lips” (159).

Roy picks up the narrative. When Roy stops at the Eloe Walmart to buy new clothes and an arrangement of flowers to put on his mother’s grave, he runs into Davina Hardrick, a friend from high school. She invites him to a home cooked meal. After dinner, Roy grows increasingly infatuated with Davina’s curvy body. Davina brings up Celestial, but Roy says only that the two are not divorced. After drinks, Roy kisses her, and his body comes alive. Even after all he has been through, Roy retains gentlemanly dignity: “I tried holding myself back because I didn’t want to reach for her like a caveman, and I can say that every moment I spent fully clothed was a miracle” (170). The two make love without protection. They stay together for the weekend. Roy cannot decide whether he is cheating. He feels reclaimed, revived, alive: “I won’t say that Davina Hardrick saved my life with her plush thighs and her ‘baby’ language, but she salvaged my something, if not my life, maybe my spirit” (177).

When Roy returns home, his father tells him that he needs to talk to Celestial, “skin-to-skin” (178). After all, the two are still married. As if on cue, the phone rings. It is Dre calling from Atlanta asking whether he can come see Roy. Roy agrees. When they hang up, Roy asks his father to borrow his Chrysler. Lovingly the father clips Roy’s unkempt prison hair over the kitchen. He tells Roy of some money, a couple of hundred dollars, Olive had put aside for him—enough to get him to Atlanta.

It is then that Big Roy tells Roy about Olive’s death two years earlier. Olive was in the terminal stages of lung cancer, but she was fighting, refusing morphine, determined to live to see her son released from prison. When Celestial comes to visit, however, she reveals to the fragile woman what Roy confided in her: that he met his biological father in prison. The news destroys the woman, and within two days she is dead. Roy cannot understand why Celestial would be so heartless.

Before leaving for Louisiana, Dre visits his own estranged father, Carlos. His father has remarried and has two children, and Dre seldom visits. Dre has his own definition of family: “I don’t believe that blood makes a family; kin is the circle you create, hands held tight” (192). Nevertheless, he feels a need to talk to his father about Celestial. Carlos welcomes his estranged son and prepares a breakfast (yet another table set amid enemies). Carlos is unsympathetic. He is sure, had he raised Dre, his son would not have gotten involved in such a moral quagmire. His advice is clear: go talk to the man you have wronged and accept punishment for his wrongdoings: “You got a real ass-whooping coming” (198).

Roy then tells the reader of his visit to Olive’s grave. He tries to pray but is overwhelmed with emotion. He cries for the first time since his sentencing. He collapses on the ground and actually writhes in agony: “The pain went on until it didn’t, and I sat up, dirty and spent” (202). He is now ready to leave for Atlanta. He stops at Walmart on the way out of town to say goodbye to Davina. It is difficult. As he admits, she “fucked [him] back to health” (203), but his future is with Celestial. She is hurt: “Go on back to Miss Atlanta [...] promise me you will not ever come banging on my door” (207).

Meanwhile, Celestial wrestles with the nature of her love for Dre, whether it is simply a matter of convenience. Dre tells Celestial he is heading to Louisiana to talk with Roy. He admits he struggles with guilt. He knows how much Roy has lost and how much he hurts: “He’s going to want his marriage back, like you been in cold storage all these years” (210). He is unaware, of course, that Roy is already on his way to Atlanta to talk with his wife without Dre there.