“Ma-a-a-a-ry ha-a-ad a li-i-i-tle l-a-a-amb . . .”

He was no Rudy Vallee, but he could carry a bumpy tune.

But those anniversary drives down Henrietta Street came later. After they’d moved back to Wooster.

Vivian was only superstitious when she wasn’t giddy and thrilled about getting married. So, Forest Chapel Methodist wasn’t available, and they had to have the ceremony somewhere else. So what? And she hadn’t given it another thought when she’d dropped her handkerchief getting out of the car on her wedding day. If she’d been watching it happen to another bride, she’d have muttered, “Oh, Jesus, that’s bad luck,” under her breath. And maybe it was nothing. Maybe dropping her handkerchief wasn’t the bad luck it was said to be, but having to move away from Wooster wasn’t her idea of a great start to the marriage. It’d seemed to come out of nowhere.

“It means you’ll have to quit the phone company,” Edward had said when he told her about his new job.

Vivian’s face had pulled into a deep frown, until she remembered that deep frowning caused wrinkles. She’d looked down at her wedding ring, which was already starting to feel a little heavier than she’d expected. She’d let out a small sigh. She was a dutiful wife now (“Mrs. Vivian Dalton, pleased to meet you”), wasn’t she? Her salary was milk money compared to Edward’s, wasn’t it? And it would have been foolish to try to argue about it, wouldn’t it? The answer to all those questions was, “Well, yes.”

So, shortly after the day of her wedding to Edward George Dalton, Vivian moved away from Wooster, away from her family, and away from the job where she’d felt a little control and a lot of pride. Far, far away from the McGinty house on South Buckeye, and far, far away from Ohio Bell on East Liberty Street. The Edward Daltons began their life of marital bliss in a run-down yellow clapboard bungalow that was five hundred miles away from Vivian’s hometown, and less than two miles from the Institution for Male Defective Delinquents.

The Eastern New York Reformatory in upstate New York was opened in 1900 mainly as a facility to handle the overflow of other prison facilities. Overflowing with thieves, murderers, rapists. If anyone had bothered to ask Vivian where she’d like to live as a newlywed, she’d have said, “Oh, near the park,” or “It’d be nice to be close to the beauty parlor.” Not, “How about a short drive from the Institute for Male Defective Delinquents at Napanoch?,” which was the official name of the reformatory by the time Edward Dalton was hired there in May of 1937. Just a few weeks before their wedding. The reformatory was overseen by the Department of Corrections, and the inmates were men over the age of sixteen with IQs of under seventy, and their sentences were indefinite.

Other than the steady pay and the security that went along with it, the only thing Vivian liked about Edward’s job as a prison guard was the uniform. Boy, did Edward look good in that uniform. Her favorite photograph was him standing with hands on hips, smiling, in his starched khaki shirt, black tie, and jodhpurs, with his thumbs hitched into his metal-buckled belt. That, by the way, was how he’d told her he had his position at the prison, the sneak. She’d been so busy at Bell, and with making plans for their wedding day, she hadn’t thought to ask him anything about his new job. She’d assumed it was something nearby. And Edward didn’t say anything about it until after she saw the photograph. He’d handed it to her, and waited for her reaction. He’d stood there, with that wicked little grin on his face, and she’d fallen for it. She’d blushed and gushed over how dashing he looked in the uniform. And he’d said, “Glad you like it,” and then he told her they had to move to New York State. “Honey, I know it’s not what you wanted, but I have to be close to my job.”