Vivian, much as she wanted to, could not stay curled up under the covers of her bed like Charlotte. She was not a child anymore. She cooked up a pot of oatmeal, slid one bowl in front of Edward and the other in front of herself. They ate their oatmeal in silence, the newlywed Daltons: Edward with his nose in the paper, Vivian with her nose still very far out of joint.

As she stood on the bathroom tiles, holding her dentures in her palm and brushing over them with a toothbrush, she gave herself a little pep talk. We’re going to figure this out, all right. After inserting her teeth and patting her mouth dry with a hand towel, she swiped the Fire & Ice lipstick all around her lips, and blew herself a forceful kiss in the mirror. She then descended the thirteen steps to the hall closet, which Edward had left open in his hurry to leave the house before her, and pulled her wool coat from the hanger. She fastened the buttons at the front door, tilted the brim on her Prussian-blue Beulah Bechtel hat, and held her head high as she walked to work. Heaven help the first bitch to give her a pity stare, because Vivian Dalton was not in the mood today.

Charlotte had ignored her growling stomach until she heard the front door close twice. The first time was her father heading to work, the second was her mother. Since her father had already left the house, the second door-closing had just been a snug pump. For the latter half of December, and all of January, if her mother left for work first, the door would be slammed so fiercely it rang through the house, peeling paint off the frame and sending a shudder through the windows, rattling them in their sashes, and now Charlotte finally understood why.

Two slices of buttered toast and a large glass of orange juice calmed the growling of her stomach, and gave her a little energy to face her reality. She glanced over at the cookie jar, which was full to the brim with the Nestlé Toll House Congo Squares Mother had baked the day before. “Baking calms me down!” For some reason she’d made them with butterscotch chips instead of chocolate, which made Charlotte wonder if the government was suddenly rationing chocolate. She hadn’t seen or smelled any in the house in weeks.

Charlotte now considered the sheer volume of baked goods that had been produced in the Daltons’ small kitchen over the past month and a half. Her mother had run through her full arsenal at least twice. Nestlé Toll House Congo Squares, sour cream cookies, seven-layer bars, peanut butter cookies with the forked crisscrosses, the Christmas fruitcakes. She’d also made divinity fudge before Christmas, and Charlotte idly wondered if that counted.

All in all, there had been a lot of “calming” going on in the kitchen that Charlotte would’ve said was more delicious than it was effective. Her mother was nowhere near calm.