Hillbilly Elegy

to dinner one night. She obliged, and
with her relationship in shambles, she
agreed to marry him a week later. She
told me on a Thursday. On Saturday we
moved into Ken’s house. His home was
my fourth in two years.
Ken was born in Korea but raised by
an American veteran and his wife.
During that first week in his house, I
decided to inspect his small greenhouse
and stumbled upon a relatively mature
marijuana plant. I told Mom, who told
Ken, and by the end of the day it had
been replaced with a tomato plant. When
I confronted Ken, he stammered a bit and
finally said, “It’s for medicinal
purposes, don’t worry about it.”