A Widow for One Year by John Irving Page B

preferred to call it a craft.
    But Ted’s truest “craft,” Marion observed, was his systematic discovery and seduction of the prettiest and unhappiest of the young mothers among the faculty wives; an occasional student would fall prey to Ted, too, but the young mothers were more vulnerable game.
    It is not unusual for love affairs to end bitterly, and as the marriages of the more unfortunate of these faculty wives were already frail, it was not surprising that many couples were permanently parted by Ted’s amorous adventures.
    “And that’s why we were always moving,” Marion told Eddie.
    In the college and university towns, they easily found houses to rent; there were always faculty on leave and there was a relatively high rate of divorce. The Coles’ only home of any permanence had been a farmhouse in New Hampshire that they used for school vacations, ski trips, and a month or two every summer. The house had been in Marion’s family since she could remember.
    When the boys died, it had been Ted’s suggestion to leave New England and all that New England reminded them of. The east end of Long Island was chiefly a summer haven and a weekend retreat for New Yorkers. For Marion it would be easier not to talk with her old friends.
    “A new place, a new child, a new life,” she said to Eddie. “At least that was the idea.”
    That Ted’s love affairs had not abated since leaving those New England college and university towns was not surprising to Marion. In truth, his infidelities had increased in number—if not in any observable measure of passion. Ted was addicted to love affairs. Marion had a bet with herself to see if Ted’s addiction to seductions would prove stronger or weaker than his addiction to alcohol. (Marion was betting that Ted could more easily give up the alcohol.)
    And with Ted, Marion explained to Eddie, the seduction always lasted longer than the affair. First there were the conventional portraits, usually the mother with her child. Then the mother would pose alone, then nude. The nudes themselves revealed a predetermined progression: innocence, modesty, degradation, shame.
    “Mrs. Vaughn!” Eddie interrupted, recalling the little woman’s furtiveness.
    “Mrs. Vaughn is presently experiencing the degraded phase,” Marion told him.
    For such a small woman, Mrs. Vaughn left a big smell on the pillows, Eddie thought; he also thought it would be imprudent, even prurient, for him to voice his opinion of Mrs. Vaughn’s odor to Marion.
    “But you’ve stayed with him all these years,” the sixteen-year-old said miserably. “Why didn’t you leave him?”
    “The boys loved him,” Marion explained. “And I loved the boys. I was planning to leave Ted after the boys finished school—after they had left home. Maybe after they’d finished college,” she added with less certainty.
    Overcoming his unhappiness on her behalf, Eddie ate a mountainous dessert.
    “That’s what I love about boys,” Marion told him. “No matter what, you just go on about your business.”
    She let Eddie drive home. She rolled her window down and closed her eyes. The night air blew through her hair. “It’s nice to be driven,” she told Eddie. “Ted always drank too much. I was always the driver. Well . . . almost always,” she said in a whisper. Then she turned her back to Eddie; she might have been crying, because her shoulders were shaking, but she didn’t make a sound. When they arrived at the house in Sagaponack, either the wind had dried her tears or she hadn’t been crying at all. Eddie only knew, from the time he had cried in front of her, that Marion didn’t approve of crying.
    In the house, after she dismissed the nighttime nanny, Marion poured herself a fourth glass of wine from an open bottle in the refrigerator. She made Eddie come with her when she checked to see if Ruth was asleep, whispering that, despite every appearance to the contrary, she had once been a good mother. “But I won’t be a