D is for Divorce by Nicole Dillie

D is for Divorce

By Nicole Dillie

Dinah fingered her Rosary. She allowed herself the little hypocrisy only while Mark was at work, the strange occasions where his shifts didn’t line up with hers. Poor Mark, the irony always tempted the cynic in him, but he had bit his lips as he choked down the jokes through years of accidentally catching her at it. These days, Dinah had acquired a habit of simply sitting around and holding it. The daughter of a divorce, living with her college boyfriend at twenty-six, she was hardly the good Catholic girl her Gram had hoped for.

The relationship had plodded on for six years now. Even in that giddy final year of college there was something dull and ponderous in that entity of MarkandDinah. Both business majors, neither had indulged in the boozy contact-collecting methods of their peers. Dinah had been a Kappa Rho at school, their secretary for three years. She attended the minimum two hours of party per week and wore her letters every Wednesday. On Monday nights, she would be in the meeting-room waiting with her laptop at the ready. In the Arial narrow font that she favored, Dinah placidly recorded sleazy gossip and power struggles without comment for almost her entire time in the sorority. Twice, she added her own comments to the minutes. One was an invitation to a pizza party in her room and the other was a reminder about the rudeness of being late to meetings.

Once Mark and Dinah graduated, Dinah went back to work for Gem, the beauty-supply store she’d walked to work at since she was sixteen. She and Mark got an apartment five minutes and two right turns from her father’s house, three minutes and a right from the house where her useless drunk of a mother rented a room, and set up house.

Four years slid by. Dinah was Fragrance Department Manager. She’d been modestly successful. Mark worked in marketing at Ralph’s Sporting Goods. He hoped to buy himself into a partnership within the next five years. Ralph was a friendly old man with no children and a sad wish for small feet to race around his hardwood-floored Georgian house. After his initial shock when she was introduced, Ralph had invited the pair over every Thursday after closing. He’d warm up frozen hors’ d’ouvres and insist that Dinah stop bringing him the tupperwares of frozen soup and pasta that appeared in his freezer at the end of the night. Mark and Dinah’s joint bank account was incubating a small nest egg and Ralph seemed to always have an eye on her left hand. Dinah’s father had been commenting on how flattering white looked on her for years. At first she’d thought it was a race thing, and then she realized it was a marriage thing instead. She didn’t know which bugged her worse.

Mark had recently begun taking her out to dinner. Nowhere fancy, Mark’s legs and elbows seemed to grow in those sorts of places, but respectable enough places still. He brought a bottle of wine home the week before. She’d never seen Mark drink anything other than beer and she’d gotten used to having only that in the house. He’d even failed to wear a baseball hat home from work on Tuesday. It was the first time in perhaps two years that she had clearly seen the crown of his head. It was slightly bald, shiny where the kinked fuzz faded into nothing.

That Sunday morning, Dinah drove the fifteen minutes past Gem for her weekly visit to Gram, the Gram as Mark called her, at eight am. In the lighted kitchen window, Dinah could see the two coffee-mugs and paper bag of rolls that were there every Sunday morning, had been since she was six and her father had dropped her off at eight in the morning to have breakfast in the cow-decorated kitchen before walking with Gramma and Granddad to Mass.

She let herself in.

“Good morning, granddaughter. Sit down and eat quick, we don’t want to be late for Mass.”

“Morning, Gram.” Dinah filled the two mugs with coffee and her fingers found the Sweet ’n’ Low next to Gram’s coffee cup. She did not need to look. Nothing in this house had moved for five years, not since Granddad’s heart attack. Gram always matched her kitchen now. Her black shape with a white smudge of a face melted into the cow-print if Dinah squinted her eyes.

“Have you gotten any of my perfume in yet?” Her hand shook as she handed Dinah a roll.

“No, Gram, they don’t make it anymore. The company went out of business.” Her voice softened, “Remember?”

Gram shook her head and stabbed the roll she’d been trying to butter. The knife wasn’t sharp, but Gram had grown frail and it would leave a bruise on her hand. Dinah snatched both knife and roll and forced her own, buttered roll into her grandmother’s hands.

“You do that for your baby not your Gramma,” Gram said sullenly.

Dinah raised an eyebrow and looked hard at her. She was looking at herself in a carnival mirror, if there was such a thing as one that added wrinkles: sandy hair in a ballet bun, startling green eyes, primly thin lips, a gold crucifix, a black sweater, sheath dress and pantyhose. They both looked like widows.

“Speaking of babies,” Gram continued in the sharp voice Dinah had inherited, “I’d like to live to see a great grand-baby. When are you and Mark ever going to a courthouse? I’ve long since given up on a church, with that Baptist family of his.”

“Speaking of courthouses, how’s Dana’s case going?”

“She’s not going to get as much as she should, but she’ll get enough from that drunk to move back home. I still don’t know why your sister married that man.”

“And how’s Daisy? Is she dating again?”

“You know your cousin, she always was fragile. She’s living alone in that big house. Hasn’t even been on a date and it’s been two years. No luck with men, though at least that pretty face found her one with money. Poor girl, she’ll never want for material things. Missy, you aren’t pulling me off my question,” she warbled before Dinah cut in.

“How’s Daria? Don? Debbie? How about Uncle Dylan? Uncle Donald? Your cousin Dave? How did Daddy feel, raising me and Dana with his mama as our mother?”

“Baby… why are you bringing all that hurt out? Let it rest.”

“Gramma, we’re cursed! The whole family and only you and Granddad stayed married. Three generations and just you and Granddad made it. It’s not even like everyone got it right the second time!”

Gram clutched Dinah’s fist in her warm, dry hand. “That means it’s high time for a happily-ever-after, Dinah. This family is sure owed one. You and Mark love each other; everything else you can work through as it comes.”

“Gram, I want to have a baby. I do. I want to have a baby and I want to name it anything that doesn’t start with a D. D is for divorce.”

Gram’s face lit then paled. ”You can’t live your life afraid. I got used to that boy, and I got used to you living with him, but, Dinah, think: a baby. You have a man that loves you. He’s a good man. It’s time to tie the knot. Grab your bit of wedded bliss. I wouldn’t trade mine for anything.”

Dinah fell silent. She hadn’t known her Granddad well. And he and her Gramma had always been fighting. He’d been a devout man, considered the priesthood but married the girl next door. All that divorce was a personal tragedy for him, like it was for Dinah. It hurt him. He stopped going to Mass. He was sharp with the kids and the grandkids. He died two days after Daisy’s divorce, the first of Dinah’s generation. His heart wasn’t in it anymore, she’d murmured to herself at the funeral lunch. She hadn’t meant to say it in front of the whole family. Gram never quite forgave Dinah that comment. Daisy and the others never quite forgot it.

They munched their rolls and drank their coffee silently. When they were done, they got into Dinah’s car and drove to Mass. It had been three years since Gram had been able to make the walk there and back. After the service, Dinah dropped Gram back off at her house and drove home to have lunch with Mark. He was just getting out of bed as she changed into a State sweatshirt and a pair of jeans.

He was foggy-eyed and disheveled as he stumbled over to her side of the bed. Wrapping his arms around her, he said, “I was thinking maybe tonight we could go out to dinner, have a different ending to our Sunday.”

The back of Dinah’s neck prickled. Mark never wanted to go out. It was always a concession. Over the years, Dinah had wondered whether there was such a thing as borderline agoraphobia. She felt certain that Mark had it. “Are you sure? You hate going out.”

“Something different.”

The only thing Mark hated more than crowds was a break in his routine. He had always reminded Dinah a little bit of a dog, a good thing since she was a dog person. He liked his routines and when she broke them he gave her a mournful look that reminded her of her old collie, Darla’s, stare if she found her food bowl empty. It was one of only two smudges on her glowing happiness that they couldn’t have a dog in their apartment. The other smudge was appearing now. Mark was not as happy as she was. She turned to him and tried to bury her face in his shirt. “If you’re sure.”

Mark was already shambling away, jamming his favorite blue baseball cap on his head. She laughed and followed him out to the kitchen where he would lay out two plates, two cups, two forks, a sliced tomato on Dinah’s favorite red plate, and a bottle of ketchup while Dinah made four slices of toast and scrambled five eggs.

Mark’s eyes shone and his forehead looked damp as they sat down and made their sandwiches.

“Are you feeling all right? Maybe you should go back to bed.” Dinah reached out and ran her fingers up and down the inside of his elbow.

Mark shivered. “I’d rather be up and moving.” He slid his hat back on his head and raked at his scalp through his clipped, thick hair. “I think I’ll go take a shower.”

As Dinah washed their dishes, she listened. Beneath the patter of the shower she could hear Mark’s pacing footsteps and a low stream of mutters.

He emerged from the bathroom streaming wet, his dark body lithe and glistening as an otter. Dinah smiled and stepped toward him, pressed so close that his bare chest made her sweatshirt cling, warm and damp, to her breasts. She squeezed tight and drew up her feet as he lumbered to the bedroom with Dinah’s arms still clinging to his neck.

Dinah lay just as Mark had left her in the bed. He vanished into the bathroom again. She spread her arms and legs, luxuriating in the last moment of freedom before the cold forced her retreat under the covers.

Mark dropped something in the bathroom with a ping, swore, and then grumbled and groaned. Apparently, he was having a hard time finding whatever he dropped. Dinah cocked her head and laughed a little as she listened. She could picture him scrabbling around on their mint-colored floor wearing nothing but boxers and a baseball cap.

He emerged from the bathroom missing the baseball cap. Something was clenched in a white-knuckled fist. The giggle that had been clambering up her throat fell stupidly to her stomach. Dinah rolled onto her belly and stared at him, her eyes glittering with ratty panic.

“I was going to wait for the restaurant but this moment seems righter somehow.”

“Mark,” she began. Through the haze and lurch of her stomach she caught herself wondering: is “righter” a word?

His words accelerated, rolling into each other, “Besides, I hate doing personal stuff in public, and you don’t like big gushy gestures, and if I waited til dessert, I would be spending a lot of money for a meal I didn’t taste, wouldn’t I? And-”

“Mark,” her voice was creaky and high.

He lowered his, “And I knew that you might need some… talking into it, even though it really is an obvious thing.” He opened the fist. “Dinah, I’ve spent the last four years wanting you to marry me.” A small flash erupted from his palm.

For a moment, Dinah’s eyes coveted the ring, held it, embraced it, and slid from Mark’s doggy waiting stare.

“Mark,” she swallowed and held her breath for a moment before continuing, “I care about you too much. We can’t get married. I couldn’t live, knowing it’s only a happy little wait until you leave.”

He sighed. “Honey, I know you have your curse theory, but I think I’ve proved that I’m not going anywhere.”

“It’s not my curse and it’s not a theory, Mark. My family just can’t stay married, there’s something wrong with us somehow. We just can’t get it right.”

“So, go to Vegas, marry a stranger and get a quickie divorce. If that’s what it takes for you to marry me, I can deal with it. You can do it while we’re engaged and no one would ever have to know.”

“I may be scared shitless of it, but I respect marriage, Mark, and I don’t think you can cheat fate like that, besides it’s not like the second marriages end any happier.”

“Fate! Dinah you aren’t your parents or your sister. You don’t have to be lonely, but Dinah, I want to get married and I can’t wait forever. You say yes and I’m not going anywhere.”

Dinah curled up on the bed and Mark sat down next to her. She curled herself so that she was wrapped around him. He was looking at her with his wounded eyes and the small glitter still danced in his palm.

“Dinah, I love you. I do. But, every day we live together like this is a hurt to my mom and I’m sure the Gram doesn’t like it, even if she’s quiet about it. Dinah, I know you’re scared, but this is about more than you or us. It’s hard enough for my mom that I didn’t want one of the girls I grew up with, that I went away to college and didn’t come back to make her the proudest mom on my whole block. You’re so different from her, that’s hard enough. You’re the Catholic to her Baptist, the math whiz to her reading.”

“I’m the white to her black, you’re getting at.”

“That too. It sure doesn’t help, Dinah, don’t kid yourself: we made life just a little rougher for both our families, being together. Your Grandad never imagined his family marrying into Italians, much less a black Baptist boy.”

Both sat silently for a moment. Dinah’s hand, lately resting on Mark’s thigh, withdrew. She tugged fretfully at her own hair.

“It’s hard enough being us as it is, Dinah. We don’t need to make it harder. I want to be able to have Ralph over to dinner. I want to invite people to OUR place without having to justify ourselves. Christ, Dinah, I want to have kids.”

“I do too,” she murmured, hiding her face against his warm leg.

“We have to be married to do those things. That little difference will change our world, Di, you have to trust me on this, and it won’t change us. I’ll be as wild about you as ever, only instead of talking about my hot girlfriend, I’ll be bragging about my sexy wife.”

She pressed her face harder against the firm thigh. A trickle down his leg let him know he was piercing through her defenses, whatever resolve she’d shored up against what she’d known he wanted. Deliberately he traced his fingers down her back, his coffee-colored fingers raising goose-bumps on her light skin. He bent as far as he could to get his lips near her ear. “Would you like to be my sexy wife?”

Dinah nodded manically, clutching at the leg her tears were wetting. Mark laughed, grabbed her shaking hand, and slowly pressed the ring onto her finger. He laughed and stroked her until she was still. As he fell silent, she raised her head to look at her altered hand.

“We still aren’t giving any child of mine a D-name,” she murmured.

Mark laughed. Dinah did not smile.

Nicole Dillie is a senior English major at Ursinus College with minors in Creative Writing and Gender and Women’s Studies. Originally from Levittown, PA, she has to admit she hasn’t moved around all that much. Currently applying to grad school, she is realizing that, yes, she does love writing enough to fill out all those forms. She is very grateful to her family, to Brian, and to her sorority sisters for putting up with her writing itch.


	D is for Divorce By Nicole Dillie Dinah fingered her Rosary. She allowed herself the little hypocrisy only while Mark was at work, the strange occasions where his shifts didn’t line up with hers. Poor Mark, the irony always tempted the cynic in him, but he had bit his lips as he choked down the jokes through years of accidentally catching her at it. These days, Dinah had acquired a habit of simply sitting around and holding it. The daughter of a divorce, living with her college boyfriend at twenty-six, she was hardly the good Catholic girl her Gram had hoped for. The relationship had plodded on for six years now. Even in that giddy final year of college there was something dull and ponderous in that entity of MarkandDinah. Both business majors, neither had indulged in the boozy contact-collecting methods of their peers. Dinah had been a Kappa Rho at school, their secretary for three years. She attended the minimum two hours of party per week and wore her letters every Wednesday. On Monday nights, she would be in the meeting-room waiting with her laptop at the ready. In the Arial narrow font that she favored, Dinah placidly recorded sleazy gossip and power struggles without comment for almost her entire time in the sorority. Twice, she added her own comments to the minutes. One was an invitation to a pizza party in her room and the other was a reminder about the rudeness of being late to meetings. Once Mark and Dinah graduated, Dinah went back to work for Gem, the beauty-supply store she’d walked to work at since she was sixteen. She and Mark got an apartment five minutes and two right turns from her father’s house, three minutes and a right from the house where her useless drunk of a mother rented a room, and set up house. Four years slid by. Dinah was Fragrance Department Manager. She’d been modestly successful. Mark worked in marketing at Ralph’s Sporting Goods. He hoped to buy himself into a partnership within the next five years. Ralph was a friendly old man with no children and a sad wish for small feet to race around his hardwood-floored Georgian house. After his initial shock when she was introduced, Ralph had invited the pair over every Thursday after closing. He’d warm up frozen hors’ d’ouvres and insist that Dinah stop bringing him the tupperwares of frozen soup and pasta that appeared in his freezer at the end of the night. Mark and Dinah’s joint bank account was incubating a small nest egg and Ralph seemed to always have an eye on her left hand. Dinah’s father had been commenting on how flattering white looked on her for years. At first she’d thought it was a race thing, and then she realized it was a marriage thing instead. She didn’t know which bugged her worse. Mark had recently begun taking her out to dinner. Nowhere fancy, Mark’s legs and elbows seemed to grow in those sorts of places, but respectable enough places still. He brought a bottle of wine home the week before. She’d never seen Mark drink anything other than beer and she’d gotten used to having only that in the house. He’d even failed to wear a baseball hat home from work on Tuesday. It was the first time in perhaps two years that she had clearly seen the crown of his head. It was slightly bald, shiny where the kinked fuzz faded into nothing. That Sunday morning, Dinah drove the fifteen minutes past Gem for her weekly visit to Gram, the Gram as Mark called her, at eight am. In the lighted kitchen window, Dinah could see the two coffee-mugs and paper bag of rolls that were there every Sunday morning, had been since she was six and her father had dropped her off at eight in the morning to have breakfast in the cow-decorated kitchen before walking with Gramma and Granddad to Mass. She let herself in. “Good morning, granddaughter. Sit down and eat quick, we don’t want to be late for Mass.” “Morning, Gram.” Dinah filled the two mugs with coffee and her fingers found the Sweet ’n’ Low next to Gram’s coffee cup. She did not need to look. Nothing in this house had moved for five years, not since Granddad’s heart attack. Gram always matched her kitchen now. Her black shape with a white smudge of a face melted into the cow-print if Dinah squinted her eyes. “Have you gotten any of my perfume in yet?” Her hand shook as she handed Dinah a roll. “No, Gram, they don’t make it anymore. The company went out of business.” Her voice softened, “Remember?” Gram shook her head and stabbed the roll she’d been trying to butter. The knife wasn’t sharp, but Gram had grown frail and it would leave a bruise on her hand. Dinah snatched both knife and roll and forced her own, buttered roll into her grandmother’s hands. “You do that for your baby not your Gramma,” Gram said sullenly. Dinah raised an eyebrow and looked hard at her. She was looking at herself in a carnival mirror, if there was such a thing as one that added wrinkles: sandy hair in a ballet bun, startling green eyes, primly thin lips, a gold crucifix, a black sweater, sheath dress and pantyhose. They both looked like widows. “Speaking of babies,” Gram continued in the sharp voice Dinah had inherited, “I’d like to live to see a great grand-baby. When are you and Mark ever going to a courthouse? I’ve long since given up on a church, with that Baptist family of his.” “Speaking of courthouses, how’s Dana’s case going?” “She’s not going to get as much as she should, but she’ll get enough from that drunk to move back home. I still don’t know why your sister married that man.” “And how’s Daisy? Is she dating again?” “You know your cousin, she always was fragile. She’s living alone in that big house. Hasn’t even been on a date and it’s been two years. No luck with men, though at least that pretty face found her one with money. Poor girl, she’ll never want for material things. Missy, you aren’t pulling me off my question,” she warbled before Dinah cut in. “How’s Daria? Don? Debbie? How about Uncle Dylan? Uncle Donald? Your cousin Dave? How did Daddy feel, raising me and Dana with his mama as our mother?” “Baby… why are you bringing all that hurt out? Let it rest.” “Gramma, we’re cursed! The whole family and only you and Granddad stayed married. Three generations and just you and Granddad made it. It’s not even like everyone got it right the second time!” Gram clutched Dinah’s fist in her warm, dry hand. “That means it’s high time for a happily-ever-after, Dinah. This family is sure owed one. You and Mark love each other; everything else you can work through as it comes.” “Gram, I want to have a baby. I do. I want to have a baby and I want to name it anything that doesn’t start with a D. D is for divorce.” Gram’s face lit then paled. ”You can’t live your life afraid. I got used to that boy, and I got used to you living with him, but, Dinah, think: a baby. You have a man that loves you. He’s a good man. It’s time to tie the knot. Grab your bit of wedded bliss. I wouldn’t trade mine for anything.” Dinah fell silent. She hadn’t known her Granddad well. And he and her Gramma had always been fighting. He’d been a devout man, considered the priesthood but married the girl next door. All that divorce was a personal tragedy for him, like it was for Dinah. It hurt him. He stopped going to Mass. He was sharp with the kids and the grandkids. He died two days after Daisy’s divorce, the first of Dinah’s generation. His heart wasn’t in it anymore, she’d murmured to herself at the funeral lunch. She hadn’t meant to say it in front of the whole family. Gram never quite forgave Dinah that comment. Daisy and the others never quite forgot it. They munched their rolls and drank their coffee silently. When they were done, they got into Dinah’s car and drove to Mass. It had been three years since Gram had been able to make the walk there and back. After the service, Dinah dropped Gram back off at her house and drove home to have lunch with Mark. He was just getting out of bed as she changed into a State sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. He was foggy-eyed and disheveled as he stumbled over to her side of the bed. Wrapping his arms around her, he said, “I was thinking maybe tonight we could go out to dinner, have a different ending to our Sunday.” The back of Dinah’s neck prickled. Mark never wanted to go out. It was always a concession. Over the years, Dinah had wondered whether there was such a thing as borderline agoraphobia. She felt certain that Mark had it. “Are you sure? You hate going out.” “Something different.” The only thing Mark hated more than crowds was a break in his routine. He had always reminded Dinah a little bit of a dog, a good thing since she was a dog person. He liked his routines and when she broke them he gave her a mournful look that reminded her of her old collie, Darla’s, stare if she found her food bowl empty. It was one of only two smudges on her glowing happiness that they couldn’t have a dog in their apartment. The other smudge was appearing now. Mark was not as happy as she was. She turned to him and tried to bury her face in his shirt. “If you’re sure.” Mark was already shambling away, jamming his favorite blue baseball cap on his head. She laughed and followed him out to the kitchen where he would lay out two plates, two cups, two forks, a sliced tomato on Dinah’s favorite red plate, and a bottle of ketchup while Dinah made four slices of toast and scrambled five eggs. Mark’s eyes shone and his forehead looked damp as they sat down and made their sandwiches. “Are you feeling all right? Maybe you should go back to bed.” Dinah reached out and ran her fingers up and down the inside of his elbow. Mark shivered. “I’d rather be up and moving.” He slid his hat back on his head and raked at his scalp through his clipped, thick hair. “I think I’ll go take a shower.” As Dinah washed their dishes, she listened. Beneath the patter of the shower she could hear Mark’s pacing footsteps and a low stream of mutters. He emerged from the bathroom streaming wet, his dark body lithe and glistening as an otter. Dinah smiled and stepped toward him, pressed so close that his bare chest made her sweatshirt cling, warm and damp, to her breasts. She squeezed tight and drew up her feet as he lumbered to the bedroom with Dinah’s arms still clinging to his neck. Dinah lay just as Mark had left her in the bed. He vanished into the bathroom again. She spread her arms and legs, luxuriating in the last moment of freedom before the cold forced her retreat under the covers. Mark dropped something in the bathroom with a ping, swore, and then grumbled and groaned. Apparently, he was having a hard time finding whatever he dropped. Dinah cocked her head and laughed a little as she listened. She could picture him scrabbling around on their mint-colored floor wearing nothing but boxers and a baseball cap. He emerged from the bathroom missing the baseball cap. Something was clenched in a white-knuckled fist. The giggle that had been clambering up her throat fell stupidly to her stomach. Dinah rolled onto her belly and stared at him, her eyes glittering with ratty panic. “I was going to wait for the restaurant but this moment seems righter somehow.” “Mark,” she began. Through the haze and lurch of her stomach she caught herself wondering: is “righter” a word? His words accelerated, rolling into each other, “Besides, I hate doing personal stuff in public, and you don’t like big gushy gestures, and if I waited til dessert, I would be spending a lot of money for a meal I didn’t taste, wouldn’t I? And-” “Mark,” her voice was creaky and high. He lowered his, “And I knew that you might need some… talking into it, even though it really is an obvious thing.” He opened the fist. “Dinah, I’ve spent the last four years wanting you to marry me.” A small flash erupted from his palm. For a moment, Dinah’s eyes coveted the ring, held it, embraced it, and slid from Mark’s doggy waiting stare. “Mark,” she swallowed and held her breath for a moment before continuing, “I care about you too much. We can’t get married. I couldn’t live, knowing it’s only a happy little wait until you leave.” He sighed. “Honey, I know you have your curse theory, but I think I’ve proved that I’m not going anywhere.” “It’s not my curse and it’s not a theory, Mark. My family just can’t stay married, there’s something wrong with us somehow. We just can’t get it right.” “So, go to Vegas, marry a stranger and get a quickie divorce. If that’s what it takes for you to marry me, I can deal with it. You can do it while we’re engaged and no one would ever have to know.” “I may be scared shitless of it, but I respect marriage, Mark, and I don’t think you can cheat fate like that, besides it’s not like the second marriages end any happier.” “Fate! Dinah you aren’t your parents or your sister. You don’t have to be lonely, but Dinah, I want to get married and I can’t wait forever. You say yes and I’m not going anywhere.” Dinah curled up on the bed and Mark sat down next to her. She curled herself so that she was wrapped around him. He was looking at her with his wounded eyes and the small glitter still danced in his palm. “Dinah, I love you. I do. But, every day we live together like this is a hurt to my mom and I’m sure the Gram doesn’t like it, even if she’s quiet about it. Dinah, I know you’re scared, but this is about more than you or us. It’s hard enough for my mom that I didn’t want one of the girls I grew up with, that I went away to college and didn’t come back to make her the proudest mom on my whole block. You’re so different from her, that’s hard enough. You’re the Catholic to her Baptist, the math whiz to her reading.” “I’m the white to her black, you’re getting at.” “That too. It sure doesn’t help, Dinah, don’t kid yourself: we made life just a little rougher for both our families, being together. Your Grandad never imagined his family marrying into Italians, much less a black Baptist boy.” Both sat silently for a moment. Dinah’s hand, lately resting on Mark’s thigh, withdrew. She tugged fretfully at her own hair. “It’s hard enough being us as it is, Dinah. We don’t need to make it harder. I want to be able to have Ralph over to dinner. I want to invite people to OUR place without having to justify ourselves. Christ, Dinah, I want to have kids.” “I do too,” she murmured, hiding her face against his warm leg. “We have to be married to do those things. That little difference will change our world, Di, you have to trust me on this, and it won’t change us. I’ll be as wild about you as ever, only instead of talking about my hot girlfriend, I’ll be bragging about my sexy wife.” She pressed her face harder against the firm thigh. A trickle down his leg let him know he was piercing through her defenses, whatever resolve she’d shored up against what she’d known he wanted. Deliberately he traced his fingers down her back, his coffee-colored fingers raising goose-bumps on her light skin. He bent as far as he could to get his lips near her ear. “Would you like to be my sexy wife?” Dinah nodded manically, clutching at the leg her tears were wetting. Mark laughed, grabbed her shaking hand, and slowly pressed the ring onto her finger. He laughed and stroked her until she was still. As he fell silent, she raised her head to look at her altered hand. “We still aren’t giving any child of mine a D-name,” she murmured. Mark laughed. Dinah did not smile. Nicole Dillie is a senior English major at Ursinus College with minors in Creative Writing and Gender and Women’s Studies. Originally from Levittown, PA, she has to admit she hasn’t moved around all that much. Currently applying to grad school, she is realizing that, yes, she does love writing enough to fill out all those forms. She is very grateful to her family, to Brian, and to her sorority sisters for putting up with her writing itch.