May McCorkle’s hand shook as she applied lipstick. The lady at the cosmetics counter had instructed her and demonstrated how best to outline a curve above her upper lip, which she considered too thin, then fill in with lipstick. May worried that the lipstick would wear off, as lipstick will, leaving an outline, a blur of something no longer there.

The stylish bob and a light brown color had replaced her too long and graying hair. She felt attractive now in a way she never had, but also self-conscious, though her sister, June, assured her that she looked younger, livelier, happier than she had in years. Still, May felt as if she were living, or at least hiding, in someone else’s skin. Turning and twisting, unsure of the jeans that hugged her hips and butt and the brightly flowered blouse tucked into the jeans, May shivered with a mingled sense of excitement and apprehension.

Her mother, Ida, who loved adages, used to say, “No sense to cry over spilled milk. Done is done.”

Well, done was done. May had packed her old gray suitcase and walked out of the house that had been home for years, out and away from Billie McCorkle. She had found a room in a widow woman’s home in West Asheville and gotten herself a job. Minimum wage, but she was frugal. And she had resisted Billie’s pleas, and then his threats, when she refused to return home.

May examined herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. She had put on weight. Her face was fuller and smoother. She did look younger than her fifty-six years, and she certainly felt younger and happy to be independent and making her own choices and mistakes. Billie, with his volatile temper, had been a hard man to live with, disagreeable, unyielding, mean, and hell-bent on being right. A woman, he said, should walk behind her man. A woman lived to do for her husband. For the children’s sake, for peace in the household, May had acquiesced to his rules and demands: when they would eat, what they would eat, how she should dress, what church they would attend, how to discipline the children, where she went, and who she could call a friend. She had been a nonperson, always scared, constantly walking on eggs.

Then, Grace, Hannah, and Amelia had arrived in Covington. She had watched them—older women with opinions of their own, taking charge of their lives and making a difference in the community. She had watched Grace befriend that hardhearted old lady Lurina Masterson and change the old woman’s life. She had marveled at the way Grace had organized members of the community to paint and clean the church in time for the five weddings, one of which had been hers.