Someone gave them a blender after they got married in Vegas; the blender made them both happy, because it was fancy and probably cost more than all their garage-sale clothes and furniture combined. In the mornings, she made smoothies. She bought the fruits she grew up with but were harder to come by here: mangoes, guavas, star fruits, papayas. Vegas had been wonderful, but he didn’t like it. They would have a real wedding, he said, when they could afford one. In Vegas she’d remembered the smell of wood chips and warm flannel. She was sure, when they got back, she’d feel married. He didn’t gamble. They ate $4.99 steaks and she ordered glasses and glasses of red wine. When they asked her what kind, she’d say “the house wine.” She brought a spangled halter top home, along with dozens of dazzling postcard pictures of the Vegas she loved most, a Vegas from the 70s she’d seen in movies, set to jazzy action music.

Now, they were a family. His family was large and old, occupying most of a small cemetery on the hill at the edge of a small town. She knew he would never leave them. This might mean he would never leave her. She liked coming in from the cold, pulling and peeling off layers of clothing, then climbing under the covers for warmth. “The biggest problem with this place,” she told him, “is that I’ll never look good in knit hats. But I like snowflakes.”

After a few months, she told him to stop washing his long hair with Ivory soap, and shared her strawberry shampoo with him. He said he was tired of smoothies and they put the complicated blender away; it was difficult to wash anyway. When he came home from his nightshift, she’d wait for him in the kitchen, cooking. She fried the eggs sunny side up, and he said, “I like it this way.” He let his hand drop down, grazing her hips, and this was like nothing she’d known before, and she kept on frying.