Free The War Between the Tates: A Novel by Alison Lurie Page A

no Wendee. Another possibility was that Wendee existed but was mentally deranged; and her husband no more responsible than she, Erica, had been for the men who used to call up and breathe at her over the phone when they lived in Cambridge. If you have a certain appearance, these things happen to you.
    When Brian called that night she said nothing. She waited until he was home again and then brought out the letter, explaining in what sounded to her like an unnaturally flat, bleak tone how she had come to read it. Giving it to him felt strange: she had so often in the last eighteen years handed over other letters and watched Brian read them, waiting for his comments, his judgment—often for his solution. It was as if she now hoped that he would explain Wendee’s letter away. He would tell her calmly, convincingly, that it was all a joke; a preposterous fantasy that had nothing to do with them.
    Because it was unlikely, wasn’t it, that such a letter should have anything serious to do with people like Erica and Brian?
    But Brian had admitted that it did, merely offering, over and over, the wrong excuse: It was nothing, it had meant nothing, it was not important, and anyhow it was finished. He was only sorry she had ever had to hear of it. (Were there, then, other things of which she had not had to hear? Brian declared there were not, but how could she trust him now?) He expressed regret, pain at having troubled her—but all as if he were apologizing for having come home with dirty clothes. He had walked into a bog by mistake, and got mud on his shoes and socks, even on his pants—a nuisance, but they could be sent to the cleaners; Brian himself was not muddy, in his opinion. He did not realize that he had betrayed not only Erica, but himself; that he had become permanently smaller and more ordinary.
    And he had made her smaller. The wife who is betrayed for a grand passion retains some of her dignity. Pale-faced and silent, or even storming and wailing as in classical drama, she has a tragic authority. She too has been the victim of a natural disaster, an act of the gods. But if she was set aside merely for some trivial, carnal impulse, her value also must be trivial.
    What is so awful, so unfair, is that identity is at the mercy of circumstances, of other people’s actions. Brian, by committing casual adultery, had turned Erica into the typical wife of a casually unfaithful husband: jealous and shrewish and unforgiving—and also, since she had been so easily deceived, dumb and insensitive. Her children, by becoming ill-mannered adolescents, had turned her into an incompetent and unsympathetic mother. And the bulldozers grinding toward them over the hill surrounding them, had turned Jones Creek Road into Glenview Heights, without her lifting a finger.
    It was like being on stage. The lights change from amber to blue; the scenery alters behind the actors: the drop curtain showing cottages and gardens is raised. The villagers have not moved, but now they appear awkward, small and overdressed against the new backdrop of mountains and ruins. And nothing can be done about it. That is the worst thing about being a middle-aged woman. You have already made your choices, taken the significant moral actions of your life long ago when you were inexperienced. Now you have more knowledge of yourself and the world; you are equipped to make choices, but there are none left to make.
    What Danielle said is true, Erica thinks: it is better for men. Brian has an important job, he makes decisions, he uses his knowledge, he gives lectures and writes books and votes at meetings for or against and lies on his floor on top of graduate students and gets up again. But for her there are no decisions, only routines. All she can do is endure.
    It is darker out now. The sky still holds some light, but its color is leaching away; the layered clouds have become gray and mauve. Brian folds his paper. “I’m going to put those stones on the trash