Romantic glamour is hard to maintain in any relationship…. But once aware of the situation, wives can make adjustments. It isn’t a question of blame—often the husband is far more to blame than the wife. It is simply that one member of the pair must do something about it.

—“The Other Woman Is Often the Creation of the Wife,” Look, August 2, 1949

Chapter 53

THE MICKELSON HOUSE
502 W. First Street, Pine Rapids
Thursday, November 22, 1945

“Set an extra place for breakfast,” Mary had phoned this morning to say. “Lissa has a surprise!”

An extra place! When already they were eight, and so many whom Wilma had not seen in so long. Her grandson, JJ, had been gone the longest, away at the war for almost four years. Elissa had not been home in two years. And Wilma’s son Harry had not visited since 1942. Plus, he had brought a girl with him, a fiancée, Anne. Wilma had not yet adjusted to the idea of her.

Outside, the sun peeked through the thick clouds, bouncing off the sugar-icing of snow on the ground and leaping through the bay window into the dining room, making everything on the table sparkle, from the white damask tablecloth and the golden flatware, on up to the gold-rimmed plates and goblets. The effect was pleasing enough, but as she folded a gold linen napkin into a clown’s hat, Wilma fretted. Mary had sounded so excited on the telephone that Wilma hadn’t complained, but nine seemed an unlucky number to seat around the table.

A fold, a tuck, a tug—as she sculpted the napkins, Wilma noticed the blue veins standing out on the backs of her hands, the tissue-paper-thin skin. Her hands looked like they belonged to an old person. But she supposed that was fitting; she would be seventy in February.

Seventy years old!

Strangely, she had felt recently that she was growing younger, reverting to the child she had been. Her body, too, seemed to be shrinking into that former self—growing shorter, in fact, with tissue delicate as a newborn’s, the mess of womanhood rescinded. Even the music that had plagued her mind these many years seemed to be waning. She knew she was closing like a tulip at night, but the night felt no different to her than the very early morning.