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appeared to suit him. My God—how insanely ironic if that were the reason behind it all! I’m sorry, Rebecca, your tits are much too small, I’m going to have to find a mistress or two or twenty, you do understand, don’t you? Yes, certainly I understand, dear; I couldn’t possibly expect you to be faithful to me when my boobs are so small, I’m only sorry they didn’t grow larger so we could have had a perfectly happy marriage.
    Well what difference did it make, really, why he did it? He did it, that was all. Pathetically, in her eyes—like a child who thinks he’s being very clever with his mischief; yes, like a child: pleasant, good-hearted, pious, playing an adventurous game and not quite realizing the wrongness of it, not quite realizing his own hypocrisy. When she had found out about the waitress in Soda Grove six years ago and confronted him with the knowledge, he had broken down and cried, head against her bosom, saying, “I don’t know why I did it, Becky, it just happened, and I’m sorry, forgive me, I love you,” and she had forgiven him, and four months later it had happened again; it had been happening ever since.
    This particular little affair had been going on for about a month now. It had started like all the others, with a transparent excuse for not coming home in the evening, and it had progressed like all the others: Matt returning after midnight two and three and four times a week, with perfume lingering on his body and long hairs on his clothes (blond this time), falling into bed exhausted. He had not touched her, of course, since it began; he never touched her, never wanted her, never had anything left for her in any way. It would be like this for a while yet, a few more weeks. Then he would tire of the new girl, or she would tire of him, and the cycle would begin anew: an apology for his neglect, a few less than ardent nights (she had always been passionate, that couldn’t be the reason for the endless string of mistresses), expensive gifts, a period of attentiveness—and then, just when she would begin to think she had a husband again, he would call her to say that he would not be home until late. . . .
    She had not bothered to confront him again after the Soda Grove waitress. He would have told her the same thing he had that first time, and have begged her forgiveness, and have professed his love for her. And the terrible thing was, she knew he did love her in some way she could never understand and did not want to lose her. He would never, as a result, leave her for one of the girls with whom he slept. Things would have been so much easier if there had been that possibility, Rebecca often thought; the decision would have been taken out of her hands. But it would never happen, and she had simply been unable to take the initiative herself: Little Orphan Rebecca with no place to go, no particular skills, a little afraid of the big wide world beyond these mountains where she had been born and reared; who could not seem to stop believing in love-conquers-all and happy endings and other fairy tales. So she forgave him tacitly each time and remained with him—enduring, pretending. Withering.
    She felt suddenly very cold, as if the wind had managed to get inside the warm house; gooseflesh formed on her bare upper arms, beneath the short sleeves of the blouse she wore. Standing, putting out her cigarette in the cloisonné table tray, she went out of the dark room to the stairs in the main hall. The bedroom she shared with Matt was at the front of the house, directly above the living room. It, too, seemed cold and dismal to Rebecca tonight—and the wide, antique-framed double bed was a kind of index of her melancholy.
    She did not turn on the lights. She could see well enough in the dark: walking half-blind through life or half-blind through a familiar house, easy enough to do once you got used to it. Crossing to the walk-in closet, she took out a heavy wool pullover and slipped it over her