My mother married my father because she was fainting in the streets with hunger. She told me this one morning as she was getting dressed when I asked her, again. I wanted a story about a moonlit proposal, maybe Guv down on one knee (hard as that was to picture) but got, instead, desperation. Trish leaned into the mirror as she spoke, applying lipstick, expertly smudging her darkened eyebrows. I had followed her into the bedroom, hoping to have her to myself. On her dresser was a small maroon leather jewelry box that I was not allowed to touch, which contained a string of real pearls and a pair of screw-on ruby earrings that had been her grandmother’s. Sweet-smelling pink face powder was scattered across the dresser top, dusting a few coins, leaving a narrow silhouette when she picked up her wristwatch. There were no wedding pictures.

“We didn’t take pictures,” she said.

Why not?

I didn’t understand, then, how young eighteen was.…