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A turn in the path
Internal tug of war
But as is often the case with Michelle, there's a reluctance to pursue much introspection. When asked about her emotions or thoughts of the future, she tends to retreat behind her long hair and shrug, answering, "I don't know" or "maybe," or sometimes just giggling.
Her parents tried to give her a house. During the several months a year her family lives in Texas, they have always inhabited a tiny home in a dilapidated development on a rutted dirt road. Recently, however, with the help of friends and relatives, Nuni built a larger house next door and offered the small dwelling to Mario and Michelle.
But she doesn't want it. Inside Michelle, it seems, a constant tug of war takes place. She longs to move ahead but strongly resists any break with the familiar.
She and Mario will live with her parents or his, she insists. "We need to save money."
But what about independence, she is asked.
"I don't know," Michelle says with a shrug. "It doesn't matter."
In some ways, Mario was the one more infused with energy and ideas during his fiancée's freshman year.
Mario makes some decisions, too
He decided he was finished with migrating north. While looking for construction work, he took a temporary job painting in a hospital.
But as he painted he watched - and thought. The hospital workers wore uniforms, carried clipboards, and looked knowledgeable. But most intriguingly to Mario, they did jobs that seemed important and helpful to others. He began asking questions.
He liked the idea of a helping profession, and what he heard about physical therapy seemed particularly appealing.
So he enrolled in a 10-week certification course at a community college. The classes led to a job as an assistant at a local clinic.
The match proved perfect. "I couldn't even imagine a better employee," says William Holmes, a pleasant, low-key man who is a certified physical therapist and Mario's employer.
And for Mario, Mr. Holmes has provided a role model and a clear set of goals. "I want a four-year degree so I can do the same kind of work as the boss," he says.
But even as Mario's goals emerged, Michelle's seemed to subside. Midway through her first semester, pre-med began to seem too hard and too long. So she changed her major to education.
It's all part of a pattern, says Haggerty. "The women start out in pre-med or engineering, but when they think about marriage they switch to something less demanding."
When you're young, everything is possible
The young couple's plan is to live cheaply with his parents or hers until Michelle finishes college. Then she will teach while he puts himself through school.
But Michelle's mother, Chris, dismisses such notions.
"I doubt it," she says of Mario's dreams of college. "Michelle has a scholarship. He won't have that." By the time Michelle finishes school, Mario will be too old to qualify for the kind of programs that assisted her.
Pregnancy may make all the difference, says Haggerty.
If Mario and Michelle can hold off on having children for several years, they may achieve at least a degree for her.
But once children come along, she says, a young family needs more income, and at that point there is generally a great temptation to quit school.
Mario, however, has the undiminished confidence of the young.
As wedding plans escalated there were many shopping trips from their dusty border town across the river to Mexico. Customs guards came to know the young couple and teased Mario, trying to convince him that marriage would mean the end of his carefree life.
"I never listen," he says, with a happy grin. "I just tell them, 'I know what I want. I've always known what I want.' "
Asked what they'll do if Michelle gets pregnant, the young couple both giggle. "I knew you'd ask about that," Mario says with an embarrassed yet pleased smile.
But neither has an answer.
And now all the talk is over, and the big day has finally arrived.
The pomp and the primping
Michelle's college friends drive from school the night before and hang crepe-paper flowers to help transform a local livestock exhibit hall into a site for a wedding reception. On the wedding morning they are jammed into her parents' living room along with an assortment of Michelle's aunts and female cousins, and her two little sisters.
Cellphones squeal, the large-screen TV blares, and conversation slips rapidly back and forth between Spanish and English. Three hairdressers are hard at work teasing and curling dark tresses, while Chris sits in the middle of the room, her hair dripping with dye.
Finally Michelle emerges from her parents' bedroom. The girl whose natural simplicity stole Mario's heart is today a tower of teased hair, heavy makeup, and billowing white dress.
Almost more quickly than seems possible, she and her dad are coming down the aisle together (in silence - no one remembered to hire an organist). Mario - looking like a young Latino Nehru in his formal white jacket - nervously waits by the altar.
The priest delivers a sermon. The couple exchange vows in hesitant, barely audible tones. Communion is offered. Then suddenly it's done.
The guests - adorned in everything from cowboy boots and jeans to formal evening gowns - spill into the reception hall. Many of them helped fund the wedding with cash contributions, and they are ready to have fun.
The dancing begins, the beans and barbecued pork are served, little children run and shout and bob happily amid the dancing crowd.
The couple's destination for their wedding night is a secret known only to Mario.
But there will be no honeymoon. Sunday the newlyweds move into Michelle's parents' house. Monday Mario must be at his job, and Michelle must prepare for exams.
Quickly, their adult lives will settle down on them. And where those lives will lead them remains to be seen.
"Michelle has already had the drive, the gumption, to move beyond where her family has gone," says Haggerty. "You just have to hope that will continue."
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