David Mercer.
He was twenty-six, worked as an electrician, and had the kind of quiet competence that made complicated things seem simple.
That evening, he fixed my apartment door.
I made him dinner from whatever I happened to have in the refrigerator.
He stayed until nearly eleven.
Then he came back the next weekend.
And the weekend after that.
We married in June of 1980 in my parents’ backyard.
Neither of us wanted a large ceremony.
We weren’t people who needed extravagance.
Afterward, we bought an old house in Cuyahoga
