Charlotte had had to wait until the next morning at breakfast, when her mother was calmly drinking her coffee, to explain that Sisyphus was a Greek king and not a venereal disease. Her mother had nodded and given Charlotte a paper bag and tape with which to bind the cover back onto the book. But she hadn’t apologized. She never apologized.

“The Myth of Syphilis, ha ha ha. Hey, you’re watching I Love Lucy tonight, aren’t you?” Sue asked, shifting easily from the horrors of mistaken-identity pornographic literature to the popular topic of the week and completely forgetting about Charlotte’s familial concerns. “She’s having her baby!”

“Oh, absolutely,” Barb answered. “Who isn’t going to watch that?”

Charlotte wished she could be as excited as everyone else about Lucy and Ricky Ricardo adding a little baby to their family. She just couldn’t escape the feeling that kept nagging at her about her own. There was something really wrong with her mother. She seemed to be teetering on the brink of something.

Chapter 19

In Vivian’s life, she wanted to believe she was a Lucy, and everyone else was an Ethel. The thing was, all the bad stuff seemed to happen to Lucy. Lucy and Ricky’d had to go through all sorts of misunderstandings, and it would’ve been swell if that’s all this was. This thing with Edward and his other goddamned wife. But Vivian was now certain there was no misunderstanding. As of tonight, Edward still had no idea she knew, and she still had no idea what she was going to do about it.

The Daltons’ television set was tuned in to CBS, and Edward, Vivian, and Charlotte all seated themselves in the living room, in their usual spots, as if nothing had been very wrong for the past three weeks. Edward in his chair, Vivian on the end of the sofa nearest the TV, and Charlotte on the floor, leaning against the far end of the sofa, holding a bowl of popcorn in her lap. It was the same way they always watched I Love Lucy, as a family. Vivian looked over at Charlotte, in her pedal pushers and bobby socks, plucking kernels from the bowl of popcorn.

“Not too many old maids in this batch,” Charlotte pointed out, throwing the few unpopped kernels into a small dish next to her on the floor.

Vivian murmured an acknowledgment. Old maids. She remembered shrieking, “Old maid!” at her sister Vera, after an argument over the McGinty claddagh ring turned ugly. Vera’d then gone and slapped her across the face. Vera had always been the most aggressive of the McGinty sisters, and wouldn’t hesitate to dole out a slap or two if she was mad enough. Vivian could only bring herself to slap back with words, and they were never great ones. “You’re stupid!” or “I know you are, but what am I?” with her fists clenched so tightly her fingernails left little half-moon indentations in her palms. Poor little Violet would usually just crumple into a sobbing heap on her bed, and Henry and Will would disappear into the backyard, uneasy with how the McGinty females expressed themselves. Family was sometimes more trouble than they were worth.