SPRING 1 QUEEN OF NOTHING WOMEN ON THEIR OWN RUN IN ALICE’S family. This dawns on her with the unkindness of a heart attack and she sits up in bed to get a closer look at her thoughts, which have collected above her in the dark. It’s early morning, April, windless, unreasonably hot even at this sun-forsaken hour. Alice is sixty-one. Her husband, Harland, is sleeping like a brick and snoring. To all appearances they’re a satisfied couple sliding home free into their golden years, but Alice knows that’s not how it’s going to go. She married him two years ago for love, or so she thought, and he’s a good enough man but a devotee of household silence. His idea of marriage is to spray WD-40 on anything that squeaks. Even on the nights when he turns over and holds her, Harland has no words for Alice—nothing to contradict all the years she lay alone, feeling the cold seep through her like cave air, turning her breasts to limestone from the inside out. This marriage has failed to warm her. The quiet only subsides when Harland sleeps and his tonsils make up for lost time. She can’t stand the sight of him there on his back, driving his hogs to market. She’s about to let herself out the door. She leaves the bed quietly and switches on the lamp in the living room, where his Naugahyde recliner confronts her, smug