After all, Rosalie has no one for whom to wear such a hat. A few weeks back Mother had said, apropos of nothing, “You know that I don’t think much of marriage. I didn’t like it myself.” This was for Rosalie’s ears only. Asia must be allowed to believe that Mother’s heart had been broken forever by Father’s death. For where thou art, there is the world itself . . . And where thou art not, desolation. Whereas Rosalie had always understood Mother’s collapse to have been largely a matter of economic anxiety. Now that Edwin is paying the bills and as long as she has her darling John, Mother is content.

Just as Rosalie is thinking this, Mother enters the parlor. Her gray-streaked hair is in a knot at her neck, the center part straight as a nail. There are just a few flecks of dandruff, a light sprinkling of snow on the shoulders of her black dress. She inhales sharply. “Come down from there before you hurt yourself,” she tells Rosalie. “What gets into you?” As if she often comes into a room to find Rosalie standing on the furniture.

She holds out a hand to help Rosalie down. There is stumbling and swaying, tottering and thumping. Mother is right, of course. Rosalie should stay on the ground where she belongs. “Poor Rose, the invalid daughter” is not the identity she would have chosen when she was sixteen, eighteen, twenty-three. By thirty-three, she’s accepted it. She can play to its advantages as needed. It’s better than no identity at all.

ii

Mother, Asia, and Rosalie are all at the table, watching Edwin not eat. Rosalie pours him a cup of coffee, which she knows from experience can set things right. She pours herself one, too. The smell of coffee is stronger than the smell of gin.

He’s returned from a two-week tour in Washington, DC, and Richmond, tired, but exhilarated, staggering in after dark, flush and flushed, breath you could light with a match. He rises late the next morning, the jolliness gone, his eyes like black holes. “My head,” he says grimly at breakfast, brushing his hair back with one listless hand and staring unenthusiastically down at a plate of corn dodgers and doughnuts. Everyone else ate hours ago and John has already left the house. He’s started making himself scarce when Edwin is around.

They can’t coax out anything but monosyllables, but Rosalie is left with the impression that Edwin’s performances were good. Better than expected. He made money, most of which he gives to Mother.

After three or four days of low skies, the morning is a dazzle of sunshine. “Edwin has brought the sun back,” Rosalie says to the table, pretending there weren’t several equally sunny days during his absence. Winter keeps losing her grip—coming and going and coming again.