“Not too close, I hope,” she’d said on the drive in the Model A from Wooster to Wawarsing, some little nowhere town between New York City and Albany. After they’d crossed the Ohio/Pennsylvania border she’d finally stopped looking for her Uncle Hugh on his Ohio State Patrol motorcycle. That, at least, had given her a little comfort, knowing he was out there somewhere on the road. A thread of connection to the family she was leaving behind. It would’ve been nice to see another McGinty out there. She would’ve even been happy to see Vera, for crying out loud, flying down the opposite side of the road on her broomstick. Vivian snickered to herself and set her chin on her elbow leaning out the window, the wind whipping her face.

The stretch of highway had been endless, and the day cloudless and hot, with nowhere proper to stop when she’d had to go to the bathroom. She’d had to go wandering out into the woods to get away from the road, not that there were any other cars on it, mind you, because no one in their right mind wanted to go to Wawarsing, New York, in July, but that would’ve been just her luck, to get into a sweaty squat near the road and have someone suddenly drive by and honk at her. She knew Edward would’ve just laughed. He said he didn’t have the same problems with modesty that she had. He called them problems, she called them manners. One thing she learned on that drive to Wawarsing was that being married was going to take some getting used to.

“How often do they escape?” she’d asked, wiping perspiration from her brow and looking uneasily out the open car window as they drove past the squat fortress set back from the road. She wondered how a place could look so gloomy and dangerous even in late afternoon July sun.

“Escape?” Edward laughed. “Who, the inmates?” and he reached out his right hand to ruffle her hair. “With me in charge?”

She hadn’t been satisfied with that answer, but Edward had then pulled the Model A into the two dried-mud grooves off Lundy Road that led up to the west side of the house, put the gears in park, and before Vivian knew it she was distracted. The little yellow bungalow on Lundy Road had peeling white shutters with Christmas tree cutouts, a sagging roof, and a rickety front porch, and it was all theirs.

The Daltons’ first house. Mr. and Mrs. Edward Dalton! Pleased to meet you, and welcome to our home! Vivian pushed open doors, and poked the broom into cobwebby corners, and put the wilting groceries away in the icebox. And then she’d stood at the back door staring across the overgrown yard at the little yellow outhouse.

“Jesus Christ.”

Vivian spent her days tidying the house, washing their clothes and hanging them on the clothesline in the backyard, and preparing dinner for the two of them. Canned soups and vegetables that she’d heat up on the stove, and the occasional chicken or ham that she’d burn in the oven. Sometimes she’d eye the empty cans and think of the old telephone game she used to play with Henry when they were kids. Cans with the string pulled taut between them. And then she’d think of the glass pressed up against the wall, which then made her think of her old job at Bell. Octopus cords everywhere and a live person chattering in her ear every few minutes. She held the can of peas to her ear. “Number, please.” She held it there for a moment as she swayed back and forth looking out the kitchen window. When she set the can back on the counter she let out a wistful “Whuff,” bringing a corner of her apron up to blot her eyes.