More checkmarks followed that, but another small x had been placed in the corner of December twenty-fourth. Edward had sure been sore at her behavior at church, and had done more of his angry muttering during the drive home, and a little on Christmas Day. Good.

Checkmark, checkmark, checkmark, checkmark, checkmark. Vivian’s agitation settled into an uneasy quiet. The kind that had a lid kept on it, just like the spring-loaded clown-in-a-box before the final bar of “Pop! Goes the Weasel.”

New Year’s Eve was just another checkmark. Vivian claimed an awful headache to avoid celebrating the evening with the Giffords next door. While Edward went off to drink a couple of beers and smoke cigars with Quentin Gifford, and Charlotte went to Sue Barker’s for an overnight, Vivian sat up in bed in her flannel nightgown and curlers. She took out her teeth, slathered on her face cream, and played a few rounds of solitaire. The cheese stands alone, the cheese stands alone . . .

The raised voices and laughter from next door traveled up and filtered through the walls of the Daltons’ second-floor bedroom, and Vivian turned toward the sound in irritation before reaching for her drink. She tipped up the glass, draining the last few drops of the cooking sherry. She’d wanted it to relax her, like it had before church on Christmas Eve, but her mood had just turned darker. She stared at the glass, squinting at the diamond pattern, remembering the first time she’d placed a glass against a wall in order to listen in on a conversation she wasn’t supposed to hear. She drew her arm back and hurled the glass as hard as she could. It hit the tall dresser just beyond the bed and broke into pieces that dropped to the carpet and settled into a small island of glass shards.

Vivian had seen movies where a startling move like that had triggered a breakthrough for the main character; awakened them to the Truth of something. Shocked them into some kind of realization, usually accompanied by the crash of cymbals or the blaring of trumpets. But Vivian’s broken glass hadn’t done anything more than make a mess for her to clean up. She reached for Edward’s pillow, buried her face in it, and screamed.

There was no breakthrough, no shocking realization, and no Truth until January third. January third was circled on the small Woolworth’s calendar with a dark ring of blue ink. A dark ring that had been circled with the pen pressing down so hard it made an indentation in all the other months of the calendar. The days that followed found Vivian sporting matching dark rings under her eyes, as if she’d circled them repeatedly, and violently, with the blue pen in her sleep.

Chapter 17

Vivian Dalton should have thanked her lucky stars Betty Miller had to go out of town during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Betty’s goodwill toward men had dried right up with Vivian’s little performance at church on Christmas Eve, but the following day was Christmas, and there was neither room nor time for anything other than presents and toys and family. So many toys! Santa had been good to them all. It was only after the children had gone to bed that night, full of chocolate, candy canes, and sugar cookies, that Betty had answered a telephone call from Marilyn Dean, and then promptly invited her over to the house for cocktails.