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but Sheila wouldn’t hear of it.
    “I don’t have time to keep up with such nonsense,” Sheila would say.
    “It’s all about priorities,” Vera often said back. “I want to look good, don’t you?”
    “Sure. I’m clean. My hair is combed, most of the time. Sometimes I put a little lipstick on. But to have to run back and forth all the time to get my hair colored, you know, to keep up with it? Nah.”
    Sheila always was that way. Vera remembered all through high school, Sheila never wore a bit of makeup. But then again, she was an athlete and a budding young artist, and just had a different sensibility than Vera had. But they knew each other since before they could walk—their mothers were good friends and neighbors.
    When Vera thought of Sheila’s mother, her heart sank. If she thought hard enough, she’d sit here and cry. Poor Gerty died a horrible death, racked with cancer, which started in her breasts. She wondered if Sheila had gotten over the anger she felt about that.
    “The old fool never had a mammogram in her life!” Sheila had spat through tears. “She refused. So, of course ... it’s too late.”
    Too late . Beatrice had mouthed those same words to her as she exited Gerty’s hospital room, tears forming in pools in her gray eyes. Suddenly Vera saw her mother’s age, her deep creases around her eyes and mouth and on her forehead. Most of the time, Beatrice’s age hardly showed at all—or at least not that Vera had noticed.
    Funny how people’s looks changed, sometimes almost momentarily. For an instant, today, Beatrice’s face looked almost childlike, and Vera had caught a glimpse of her own mother’s vulnerability.

Chapter 5
    “Why don’t you go out, anyway?” Mike said to Annie as they were clearing away the supper dishes.
    Annie leaned against the counter and crossed her arms. “I’m not sure where I’d go.”
    She thought momentarily of the mall. It would be nice to shop without the kids along—but it would also be nice to shop if she had more than fifty dollars in the bank. Movies? Nah, nothing she wanted to see bad enough to spend the money on.
    Just then a crash came from the other room—where both of the boys were. Annie and Mike ran into the room to find the boys were into the box of pictures that she so carefully gathered and labeled. Pictures were scattered across the carpeted floor and the furniture. Ben looked sheepishly at them, while Sam danced around with the box on his head.
    Annie’s stomach twisted. She worked on gathering and organizing those photos for weeks. “Ben! Sam! Damn it!” she roared, lurching forward and gathering the crumpled pictures, with tears falling from her as if someone had died. She knew she was overreacting. A part of her seemed to be watching herself. She gathered the pictures, sobbing. “I can’t believe it,” she cried. “Look at this!”
    Mike rounded up the boys and took them into their room. Annie saw her hands shaking as she lifted her treasured photos off the worn couch. She took a deep breath. How did the boys get the box? She had left it on top of the TV stand. Then she saw the chair behind the stand. As she placed the pictures in the now-disorganized box, she turned to face her husband.
    “Hey,” he said, with his dark eyebrows lifted, “you need to take a deep breath. You scared the boys half to death.”
    “I’ve been working on this for weeks.”
    “I know, but still, you lost your temper.”
    Next she was in his arms, sobbing. What was wrong with her? The boys were always into everything. This was really nothing new. What was different? She was disappointed at not getting to go out. Then she read the awful online report about Maggie Rae—a woman she saw around town a few times and had hoped to get to know better. A stay-at-home mom, like she was.
    Maggie Rae was always alone with her kids. When Annie first glimpsed Maggie Rae, she wondered if she even had a husband. She was surprised later on to find out she did.