LaShay and Keith have been married three years, but they’ve been together ten. They met as AmeriCorps volunteers on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Porcupine, South Dakota—a tucked-away place with a scattered population of 1,000. He taught computers and played guitar. She taught English and wrote poetry. In the volunteer house, they courted each other by making a phone out of tin cans and a string. LaShay still remember his voice in her ear. Automatic goose bumps. A year later, their mothers discovered they were born in the same hospital in New Jersey, 1,600 miles away.
