Vivian and her brothers and sisters had always assumed that their Pawpy stopped working for the railroad because he didn’t have enough seniority to keep his job, because that’s what their parents had told them. After the love letter fiasco Vivian suspected her mother might’ve demanded he quit that job and find something else to do. Something that would keep him close to home, where she could keep an eye on him.

Keep an eye on him. Like he was a baby with a hand too close to a hot stove. Why did these men need to be watched to behave the way they should behave? Grown men, for chrissakes. She’d have been better able to handle it if it’d been a regular old affair, like the one Farley Dean was having with his trampy blond secretary at the accounting firm. Vivian wouldn’t have been happy about that, but it would’ve seemed at least kind of familiar. How would she have “kept an eye on” Edward before she’d even met him? It just wasn’t one of the questions she had thought to ask him during their courtship. What do you think of jazz? Can you make a good bathtub gin? Are you already married?

“It’s not . . .” She tried a sentence to answer Violet’s question about Pawpy and Mama, but her thoughts were starting to swim. “It’s not the same thing.”

Pawpy, the railroad, Edward and Mildred, It’s “the farmer takes a wife” not “the sheep . . .”

“No, no!” Violet blurted out, her words landing like stones tossed into the choppy waters of Vivian’s thoughts. “No, it’s not at all. I just wondered if it, you know, made you feel like it did back then.”

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It hurts.”

“I’m so very sorry, Vivy.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. Thanks, Vi.”

“Okay, then, go get some rest. But call me later if you need to.”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

Vivian pushed herself up from the floor with a groan and reached over to the side table to place the receiver back in its cradle. She had counted nine steps up the stairs when the phone rang. Violet and her damned sympathy and attention to detail. She always liked to double-check things. Vivian would’ve let it ring but the noise was grating on her nerves. After the sixth ring she’d made it back down the stairs to the phone.

“Vi, I’m really fine.”

“Vivian?” her sister Vera’s voice came over the line.

Goddammit all.

But she should’ve expected it. Vera wouldn’t miss an opportunity like this.

“Hello, Vera.”

Vera didn’t say anything else right away and Vivian wondered if one of her friends at Bell had disconnected the call for her. That would’ve been good of them. Merciful.

“I’ve been meaning to call,” Vera’s voice came back over the line.

Vivian felt renewed irritation for the Bell operators.

“Have you?” Vivian tried not to sound icy, but it was a lot of effort.

“Look, Viv, I just wanted to tell you I was sorry about what happened.” Her voice was flat, and to Vivian’s ears didn’t sound all that sorry. Vera had never really been sorry about anything in her life. Vivian couldn’t remember ever hearing her sister apologize, but she sure remembered a whole lot of “I told you so”s.