Even when Wilma was feeling ill due to her pregnancy, she always spent two or three hours each morning, after John left for work, with her lists and ledgers, then met with Terese, who would communicate Wilma’s wishes to the rest of the staff—to Wilma’s relief, since the girls spoke only a little English. Sometimes Wilma supposed that Terese, to shield Wilma from the worst of the work, made many of the inconsequential decisions herself. That was fine with Wilma—she wished she could hand over all the headache-inducing, monotonous duties. Keeping the house had never interested her; even when she’d been young and her mother had tried to teach her certain crucial skills, Wilma had always had her mind on Chopin or Mozart, and had rushed off to the piano the moment her mother released her, with not a second thought to what she had just been told.

Now there were many days when Wilma, sweating over a ledger, staining her fingers with ink, hated herself for being fool enough to marry so soon, when she could have continued to study the piano. Darn her sister, anyway—she’d made her fear becoming an old maid!

If only Wilma had known the headaches involved in married life. For example, if the dinner table wasn’t properly set—golden flatware properly aligned with the bottom of the gold-rimmed plate, gold-rimmed goblet set to the proper angle of the plate, and so on—Wilma’s father-in-law, Knute, would raise his eyebrows and say, “I see you haven’t got those kitchen girls trained yet, then, Wilma.” He was awfully particular, Wilma thought, for a man who, according to his stories, had eaten off the same tin plate for six months in the woods every winter when he was young, with his pocketknife his only utensil. Now he liked things to be just so—to prove all he had achieved, Wilma supposed—and it seemed impossible to please him. And then there was the matter of pleasing her husband! If the menu didn’t vary enough from day to day—too many rutabagas night after night come January, for example—John would be sure to complain. Never mind that he expected her to achieve these spectacularly varied menus on a limited allowance, and had lectured her on the importance of never letting a morsel of food go to waste. She didn’t think it was her fault if rutabagas were the only thing piled sky-high in the root cellar, while everything else had dwindled. But of course it was, they told her. It was all a question of management! Of planning!

Nearly every day she imagined packing her trunks and getting on the train to Appleton. She was certain the college would let her back in! She could just pretend that her marriage had all been a bad dream.

If not for the problem of the baby on the way.