Though Dolly put on a smile, she wished that Byron had never brought her to this town. Back in Battle Point, everyone knew her. She was Dr. Bronson’s third daughter! Rose was the wild one, Lily was the serious one, Jasmine was the baby, and Dolly was known as “the bright one,” though she had never been certain if that referred to her brains or her lipstick.

“Don’t worry, Dolly, you’re a shoo-in,” Corinne said. “The vote is just a formality.”

“That’s what everyone said when I was up for homecoming queen,” Dolly said. “And I lost to Betty Bowers, because she was dating Harold Anders, and everyone wanted him for king.”

Dolly had never found the incident humorous, but Corinne laughed and laughed and said, “You poor girl.”

Dolly walked home feeling lonelier than ever. As she kneaded together the evening’s meat loaf, she watered it with two fat tears, and when Byron sat down to it later, he raved about it; somehow, that only made her feel worse.

I won’t be placated, she thought, later that evening, as she stood out on the back stoop in her nightgown smoking a cigarette, the chill of the night raising the hair on her arms. She hadn’t been able to sleep; Byron’s steady breathing had aggravated her even more. That he could sleep, when she was so unhappy! What’s the matter, Byron? she thought, looking up at the moon.

Chapter 6

Married life is serious business, as living always is, but it is easier and at the same time more rewarding than single life. To be human is to be lonely. To be successfully married is to have an inner bulwark against loneliness.

—The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book, 1939

HOME OF BYRON AND DOLLY MAGNUSON
406 Jefferson Avenue, Pine Rapids
Tuesday, July 4, 1950

“Hurry up, Doll, Roy’s got the car running, and they aren’t gonna wait those fireworks for us,” Byron hollered from the front room.

Dolly met her own eyes in the bathroom mirror. She could see the awful wallpaper behind her in the reflection—Byron still hadn’t purchased the white paint he’d promised. She made up her mind.

She flipped off the light and went out to meet him. He looked handsome and relaxed, his collar open, his face flushed. He and Roy had been drinking beer just about nonstop since five o’clock, and the combination of their loud chatter and the shrieking of Roy’s wife and two children had given Dolly a first-class headache.

“Byron,” she said, “I—I’m not feeling very well. Why don’t you go on without me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Really, Byron, I—I’ve got a headache and I just don’t—I think I’d just like to get some sleep. You go on with Roy and Susie and have a good time.”