“Sorry, Viv, can you try again later? By the way, how’re you doing? You doing okay?”

Vivian’s brothers and her older sister had moved out of Wooster by then, to Fredericksburg and Akron, but the news would reach them soon enough. She remembered when she was going to be married (the first time), and how excited she’d been to tell everyone. Vera’d said nobody’d be crazy enough to marry her. The ring Edward had given her had belonged to his mother, whose fingers were unfortunately thick. Edward said thick, Vivian would’ve said fat. The delicate platinum band with elegant scrollwork surrounding a half-carat diamond slipped right off Vivian’s ring finger, so until she could have it properly fitted by Orelin M. White of White Jewelers on East Liberty Street, she wore it with a piece of cloth tied around the back.

She’d pressed her thumb up against the knot in the cloth to hold it steady as she shot her hand out under Vera’s nose, and letting out an accidental high-pitched giggle. The sun had been shining brightly through the window over the sink in the McGintys’ kitchen, where Vera was filling a glass with water. Vera had jerked her head back, and then slapped Vivian’s hand away in annoyance, so Vivian took a step back, cleared her throat, and held her left hand over her right shoulder, fluttering her fingers. Vera’d set her water glass on the counter, turned around, looked at the fluttering hand, and Vivian saw the briefest of scowls before Vera forced the corners to stretch out into a smile. The smile hadn’t reached her eyes, though. Vivian had noticed that.

“Well,” Vera’d said, her voice much higher and thinner than usual. “Good for you. Congratulations.”

None of the responses from any of the other McGintys had been quite as satisfying as Vera’s. Pawpy had crowed, “One down, two to go, eh, Vera? Violet?” And Vivian’s mother might as well’ve thrown a barrelful of dirty wash water on Vivian when she suggested that Vera be her maid of honor.

This “announcement” of Vivian’s second wedding was going to have to be different, and her only consolation was that everyone’d probably already seen the newspaper and wouldn’t be gasping quite so much when she told them over the phone.

She dragged the heavy telephone base to the sofa and set it next to her as she sank into the cushion, which had a lipstick mark on the other side and she’d get to that later. She groaned and looked at her hands. The skin had started to wrinkle, and there were two spots she was calling freckles, but a doctor would’ve said were liver spots. She hadn’t even worn the diamond engagement ring for a long time. It just got in the way when she was baking. She kept it safe in the velvet-lined silver jewelry box on her dresser. The rings on her fingers were the Irish claddagh on the right hand and her plain wedding band on her left.