So far as the art world was concerned—Sheila lapsed into a furious monologue one night at Monica’s house, drunk on Moët Chandon she had brought for them to have with dinner, saying that her husband had been cheated during his lifetime as a consequence of his indifference—his Olympian contempt—for dealers, publicity, critics, collectors: and now that he was dead, and his sculpture was worth a great deal, things were in such a muddle that she couldn’t cope with them and get on with her own work. “He was being cheated and now I’m being cheated and why should I make myself sick with worry?” she said. “But I do worry—I can’t help it—then suddenly I find myself not giving a damn—weeks go by and I don’t even think about it—it’s as if I hadn’t even known Morton Flaxman, let alone slept with him for seventeen years.” She paused, rubbing a fist into her rather bruised-looking eye. “Ultimately—I suppose I don’t give a damn. I could walk away from Edgemont tomorrow and never give it a second thought as long as I could keep on working somewhere else. I don’t feel like the widow of a famous man. I don’t feel like anyone’s widow—I’m simply too selfish.”

Monica volunteered to help Sheila with her bookkeeping, or with checking for needed repairs on the house, whatever—even typing up forms and labels for her artwork—and Sheila stared at her as if she were mad. “With your teaching schedule, with all you have to do, where could you possibly get the time?—you’re being ridiculous,” she said, “you’re begging to be exploited. Morton would have said yes, yes at once, yes sweetheart, do climb aboard, but I’ll say No thank you.” Then she added, as if she couldn’t resist detaching herself, distancing herself, from Monica’s solicitude: “Also—I value my privacy.”

Another day, however, she would come up with the sudden idea that she should lend Monica money so that Monica could make repairs and improvements of her house; perhaps she should even lend Monica enough money to make a down payment toward buying the house . . . ? “Or I might buy it myself,” she said vaguely, excitedly, “and you could rent it from me for a hundred dollars a month. Or would that be too much?”