Seeing the menu from her first year of marriage made her melancholy. She couldn’t help but recall that, back then, she had thought she knew what married life was all about. She had thought that if she prepared the right meals, looked the right way (lipstick in place, a starched apron to match her dress), she would somehow feel perfect satisfaction inside, too. After all, in appliance ads, the model women glowed from the inside out, merely because their refrigerators were modern and sparkling clean.

Dolly had known enough to know that life wasn’t like an appliance ad, but always before she had imagined that that glow of pure satisfaction was actually possible to achieve through homemaking. All she had to do was just try hard enough; if she wasn’t satisfied, it was her own fault. Back then, she had been busy learning, and spending most of her time with her mother and sisters and friends in Battle Point. She had never been lonely there the way she was in Pine Rapids, and homemaking had seemed a fine career choice.

So she had never until now had occasion to wonder: If this life she’d chosen was meant to fill her like water filled a vase, why did she feel so empty? Was she a flawed woman, a cracked vase? What if she was on the wrong track, trying to get the Mickelson house for Byron, trying to get pregnant? What if the house and babies weren’t enough to fill her emptiness? What would she do then?

“Hi, Doll.”

Dolly looked up. Byron had come in the back door without her hearing. He looked exhausted. He really did work hard, she knew; she really did want to do her best for him. “Hello, darling,” she said, and went to kiss him. “How was your day?”

When they sat down to supper, Dolly, with her doubts and worries nagging her, had trouble following the things Byron was saying about his day down at the Chrysler dealership. When he lapsed into silence, she blurted, “Byron, have you ever considered what you really want in life?”

He looked up, startled. “Sure, Doll. Plenty. Especially during the war, I did.”

Dolly held her breath. Was he going to tell her something about the war?

“I wanted what I have now. A nice wife. A nice job. A nice house. We’ve got it a lot easier than my folks had it on the farm, you know. I never wanted to work seven days a week like my dad did. But then, once you’re in a war, you don’t stay too picky about much anymore.”

Leave it to him to prick guilty holes in her dreams and dissatisfactions. “Do you want children?” she asked.

“Sure. Isn’t that what we’ve always talked about?” His eyes opened wide. “Do you mean—?”

“Oh, no. No, nothing like that. I’m sorry.”