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little about what she did now. He seldom asked her about her day, just assuming she filled it with care of the house, shopping for their needs, reading, watching television, visiting with the few friends she had outside of the
    development.
    The truth was she had lost contact with nearly all but one, Ann Cassil, and only because Ann was as lonely as she was most of the time. Ann called herself a sports widow. Her husband was either golfing, skiing, or watching football games with his friends.
    “I don’t know what drew us to each other,” she revealed to Marilyn during one recent phone conversation. “We don’t even like to eat the same things. How,” she wondered
    rhetorically, “does something like this happen?”
    Indeed, Marilyn thought as she rocked, how does it happen? She tried to recall her own romance, tried to understand what it was about herself as a young woman in her twenties that made her vulnerable and easy prey for Philip, for that was the way she thought of herself now, easy prey.
    He was—and still is—a man of great strength, she thought. Perhaps her coming from a family in which the man of the household was weak caused her to be attracted to Philip’s strength. She saw how her mother had suffered because of her father’s frailties. Her father was easily intimidated by other men, was anything but aggressive in the workplace and often was passed over for promotions by younger, more vigorous men. He was the
    sort who would just shrug and accept it if he were overcharged or given a defective product. Her mother had to fight all the battles and it aged her and wore her down until she withered away prematurely in her early sixties and succumbed to heart disease.
    Ironically, Dad was still alive and in a home, the cost for which Philip paid.
    Philip was generous when it came to worldly things and he loved to be in charge, the one responsible, the one who looked after everyone. He never stopped her from buying
    anything. Actually, he was always after her to buy herself more, insisting that she keep up with the styles and look wealthier than anyone else in the development. After all, she was Mrs. Philip Slater, wasn’t she? That required looking and acting a certain, expected way.
    That went for the house as well as for her. Philip encouraged her to shop for art, to update the furnishings, to change the drapes and shades, to redo rooms. He insisted she make the house her career, and she had.
    She had gone to college and had graduated with a major in English, but she had no
    intention of being a teacher or a writer. Philip, who was two years older, had started to date her when she was a sophomore. She had many opportunities to go out with other
    men, but Philip was overwhelming in those days, not that he wasn’t as overwhelming
    now. It was just . . . different.
    It was almost as if he had become another person, or the person she fell in love with had either slipped away or been drawn down into him and buried somewhere under this
    darker, colder, sterner man. But maybe he wasn’t all that different. Maybe she
    deliberately had overlooked and ignored this part of him. Maybe she had dreamed she would change him instead of him changing her. She had been too immature to realize or care back then and now it was too late.
    It was too late because she had more of her father than her mother in her. Direct
    confrontation was difficult if not impossible for her. Just the thought of getting into arguments with Philip made her tremble and gave her an upset stomach. Of course, all this was worse since Bradley’s death. Whatever fragility she possessed before,
    intensified. She would cry at the slightest provocation.
    The fact was, she was comfortable with Philip’s domination and control. There wasn’t a problem, no matter how small, that he wouldn’t assume and solve. Could he be protecting her? Was it because he saw what she had become and he wanted to spare her any more
    pain? She liked to think so, although