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“Really, Celia,” he said, “I wouldn’t try if I didn’t think I could do it.”

“Let’s see in the morning,” I said quietly. He smiled at me and clicked off his light. I stayed in the door frame for a few minutes, trying only to remember the words of radio songs, trying hard to fill my whole brain with hundreds and hundreds of lyrics. I cleaned the refrigerator but it was clean. Finally I left the house.

The night was warm and clear, all the lights off in the neighborhood, front lawns wide and empty. I walked through the streets counting the sidewalk squares over and over under my feet until I reached one thousand, which brought me right to the middle of the center square. And there was the Greek statue looming under its sheet. I stood quietly at its base, and looked around. The park was empty, only trees and circles of splintering wooden benches surrounding me. Even under the sheet, the statue commanded the space. I began to run in front of it, back and forth in tight rows.

“I’m going to do something,” I warned, back and forth in front of the pedestal. Windows in the distance were dark, people sleeping, holding their wishes in tightly. I could hear my breath mounting as I ran faster. “I’m going to show him,” I yelled, louder this time. The silence was great and empty. I ran for a moment more, faster, faster, then stopped abruptly in front of the base of the statue, and stilled my body. Breathing quickly, I grabbed a corner of the white sheet. I rubbed the corner over and over between my fingers, chafing my skin, until it climbed into my fist and I had a good hold. And then, with one fierce yank, I pulled the sheet off. It blew up high, like a gasp, then floated to the ground, collapsing and bowing behind the statue.

Uncovered, the god looked huger than ever—young, unbreakable. I put my foot on the top of the pedestal and pulled myself up. I climbed on his foot, then his knee, until I was high enough to face him. Holding on to his shoulders to steady myself, I moved in close, arms wrapping around his shoulders, pressing into his chest.

“Father,” I whispered. I listened as my breathing slowed, and waited for something to change.

THE RING

I fell in love with a robber and he took me on his rounds.

Don’t talk too much, he said, or you’ll mess me up.

As I talk a lot, this was difficult for me. He told me in a hushed voice to look around the kitchen while he went to scour under the living room couch. I stuck my hand in the flour canister and found a diamond ring! It was so hard not to shout out! Clamping a hand over my mouth, I whispered to my palm the word diamond over and over. I put it on my wedding finger and the white dust sprinkled over my glove as if someone was about to cook me.

The robber returned with a bag full of loot—three gold chains, a watch, two diamond bracelets and a shiny spoon—but when he saw that ring standing tall on my leather finger he proposed to me right then and there—took it off my finger, put it on again, kneeled down, looked me in the eye. And right there in a stranger’s kitchen I said yes to that robber and both of our eyes filled with tears at the Tightness of it all. Shutting the front door quietly behind us, we walked hand in hand to the car; when he said we were far enough away, I let out a shout of joy.

The next day we declared ourselves married and for our wedding night he went to the supermarket and bought ten bags of flour. Pouring it on my bedroom floor, my robber made a foot-deep flour sandbox. It was going to be a pain to vacuum but I loved the clean way it rolled off our skin and how I squeaked on the grains and when we kissed it tasted like morning.

Late that night I called my parents and told them I was married and my mother shrieked with delight and when my father asked: What does he do? I said, He’s a baker. I could hear they were skeptical about the life of a baker’s wife but I said, It’s a good life and I love him and my mother said, That’s all that’s important, Penny