An American Marriage

In prison, Roy urges Celestial to write. He prefers letters over the very public and humiliating protocols of prison visits. Please, he begs, “keep loving me” (59). Initially, Roy encourages Celestial to pursue her doll-making as a strategy for handling her loneliness. He refrains from talking much about prison life, only that he met an older prisoner named Walter who is also from Eloe. Walter takes Roy under his wing and helps him make sense of the world of incarceration. He becomes a mentor for Roy (Roy calls him the “Country Yoda”).

Celestial, for her part, shares how her childhood friend Dre has become her constant companion. She assures Roy that both she and Dre believe he is innocent and that her uncle, a trial lawyer, will work on an appeal. Roy and Celestial both understand the difficulties in being a “long-distance couple” (47). Roy begs, “touch me with your mind” (60).

Roy is haunted by their decision, during the trial, to abort a child they had conceived. Roy now sees sinister implications in Celestial’s decision: “When we decided to have the abortion,” he writes, “it was like we were accepting that things weren’t going to work out in the courtroom. And we gave up” (49).