I Married You for Happiness by Lily Tuck

him.
    Americans. I have shipped to Ohio, to Nuova York, to California. Ah, beautiful California.
    Have you been? Nina asks, freeing her hand at last.
    Piero or Pietro shakes his head. No, no. My brother, he live in California.
    Despite her look of disapproval, Philip does not bargain and pays for the pot in cash.
    You’ll see, he is never going to send it to us, Nina tells him as they get back in the car. I don’t trust him.
    You never know, Philip, an optimist, answers.
    Months later, the pot arrives, intact. It is packed with newspaper and straw in a large handmade wooden crate.
    You have to have more faith in people, Philip tells Nina.
    Iris again.
    What if she finds a photo of Iris? The photo slips out from in between papers, from inside a folder in a desk drawer. Or what if Louise, who is helping her sort through Philip’s papers, finds it—a small, 2½-by-2¼ black-and-white photograph.
    Look, Mom. Who is this blonde girl standing next to Dad? She looks like Grace Kelly. I love her dress. So fifties. Look at her tiny waist. Dad’s got his arm around her. Is she a relative? There’s something written on the back. It’s hard to make out—”To my darling.” Yes. “To my darling Phil.”
    Yes, a relative, Nina tells Louise.
    And, no, not Grace Kelly, Nina thinks. Grace Kelly is too sophisticated and well heeled. Iris looks more like Eva Marie Saint—the way Eva Marie Saint looks in the movie
On the Waterfront:
pretty, naïve, and full of convictions.
    Eva Marie: the name of Philip’s best man’s fourteen-year-old daughter who was killed in an avalanche as she skied down the unpatrolled backside of a mountain in Idaho. Getting buried in snow, Nina thinks, must be like drowning.
    When Philip is away and she is alone in the house at night, she moves the umbrella stand directly in front of the front door. If an intruder was to come in, he would knock over the umbrella stand and break it. The noise will wake her.
    Undecided for a moment, Nina stands in the hall and looks around. The door to Louise’s bedroom, the doors to the guest room and guest bathroom are all shut.
    Three doors.
    She shakes her head a little, recollecting.
    How many times have I tried to explain this to you?
    She can hear the bantering and slightly irritated note in Philip’s voice.
    You have three doors in the game and behind one door is a car, a diamond ring, or—
    How about a new washing machine? Nina interrupts.
    Okay, then, there is a new washing machine behind one door and a goat behind each of the two other doors.
    One of those expensive German ones. A Bosch.
    Are you listening or not? Otherwise, I am not going to try to explain this to you again.
    I am listening.
    Okay, so you choose a door. The door stays closed but since the game show host knows what is behind each door, he opens one of the two remaining doors—one with a goat behind it. He then asks you if you want to stay with the door you chose or if you want to switch to the last remaining door.
    I would stay with the door I chose, Nina says.
    Don’t you see, Nina, Philip goes on, raising his voice, once the game show host has opened one of the doors that has one of the goats behind it, he has reduced your chances from 1 in 3 to 2 in 3 to open the door with the washing machine? It’s to your advantage to switch. It’s obvious. I can explain it to you logically. I can explain it to you mathematically.
    Still, Nina refuses. I told you, I am not switching doors.
    What does he call the problem? A veridical paradox, for although it appears to be absurd it is demonstrably true. And what does he call her?
    A stubborn goatherd.
    Back in the bedroom, Nina pulls up one of the chairs and places it next to the bed.
    Again, she touches Philip’s cold hand.
    Philip, she whispers.
    He wants to be cremated, he has said so. He also says that he does not want his ashes to be buried but spread in the sea. In the Atlantic, he specifies.
    The largest park in Paris. It’s over a hundred acres,