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Vic’s living room felt more cramped and shabby each time he entered it. One side had big windows looking out at the front yard, and the other walls were covered with bookcases and flea market oil paintings and old family photos—of Caroline’s family—in antique frames. Every flat surface was littered with fifties knickknacks—souvenir ashtrays, chalk bookends with animals heads on them.

Once upon a time Vic had welcomed all the stuff Caroline brought home from her excursions, but that was back when the kids were little and it felt like they had room to spare. Now they were living with three hulking teenagers and a dog and Caroline’s ever-present father—who’d always been kind to Vic, even though he’d been an English major, and had paid for private elementary school for all three of his grandkids, so how could Vic complain about his being there? It was just that this house was starting to feel just as chaotic and unwelcoming as the house he grew up in. If a hurricane did come through Tallahassee and their house was flooded, all Caroline’s crap would be ruined and they’d get to start over again.

As soon as Nance spotted the old photographs, grouped together on one wall and lined up on top of a short bookcase, she shuffled over to see them, oohing and aahing. Suzi told her who was who. Nance seemed most interested in photos of Wilson and his wives. Suzi pointed out Wilson’s later wives, Lila and then Verna Tommy, both of them plump and blond and sweet faced, unlike Caroline’s own mother, his first wife, Mary, who was dark and serious looking. Nance picked up and closely examined the oval sepia-toned portrait of Wilson and Mary on their wedding day, both of them gazing down at her bouquet of daylilies like it was the most compelling thing in the world. “What a lovely couple!” Nance said. “Oh, I just love old photographs.” She turned to Caroline, who was slouched at the other end of the couch from Vic, waiting to be able to politely eat her cake, as he was. “Your mother made a beautiful bride,” Nance said to Caroline.

“She left when I wasn’t even a year old,” Caroline answered. “Never heard from her again.”

“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.” Nance set the photograph back down in front of the others, positioning it carefully. “She must’ve been out of her mind. Simply out of her mind to do that.”

“Okay, time to eat.” Suzi knew when to head her mother off. She herded her new friend, both of them clutching their cake plates, forks, and napkins, over to the old red armchair in the corner, where Nance settled down.

Suzi, her wild curly hair pulled back in a ponytail, plopped down between Caroline and Vic, emitting waves of lemony smelling perfume.

Nance sat on the edge of her seat and began to eat daintily, careful not to drop a crumb. She was the kind of person who was easy to overlook. She had a short white cap of hair and pale skin. She had a dark place on one cheek, like an age spot, and legs speckled with bruises, which Vic assumed were from bumping into things. She wore a flowered skirt and tucked-in blouse, and the whole affair rode up too high on her waist. This was the only fashion faux pas Vic ever noticed in anybody, because he’d once been accused of high-waistedness himself.

In between bites of cake, Suzi reached over and adjusted the strap of Caroline’s tank top so that it was covering the tattoos on her left shoulder.

Caroline, his former sprite of a wife turned menopausal mess, yanked her strap back down.

“You’re just as cute as your daughter,” Nance said to Caroline.

Caroline shook her head, ungracious about the compliment.

She used to be cute, Vic thought, until she gave up on herself and everyone except Ava. When Vic met Caroline she’d been a fashion merchandizing major at the University of Iowa, working part-time at a clothing store, called Barbara’s, in downtown Iowa City. After she graduated and married Vic she was promoted to store manager. Women from all over Johnson County—and surrounding counties—flocked into Barbara’s to get Caroline’s sartorial