“The moods and bursts of temper came less frequently,” Betty Kaminsky said. “Later he said that our marriage had become a treadmill, and I suppose there was some truth in that. There’s some of the treadmill in every part of life. We did have our goals but they were far off. I wanted children, but I had agreed to wait when I married him—it was implicit. I didn’t nag or make excessive demands or have an unrealistic view of our position. I used to wonder what he wanted that I didn’t give him, but I haven’t thought about it lately. I believe that I was everything I could have been. If we were on a treadmill he was just as responsible for it. That was something he never acknowledged. When it had suited his purposes he had been perfectly willing to let me follow his lead and serve his whims. When it didn’t suit him he didn’t try to tell me—he held it against me. I don’t know how long before he told me he actually did quit on our marriage. That’s why I called him a coward the other day. That and his failure to tell me what happened the night he came home with that thing on his neck.”

“I see. Now I want you to tell me how he went about asking you for a divorce.”

She did not seem to like the choice of his words. Her hand pushed at the hem of her skirt again. “I knew that there was something going on months before—maybe it was as much as a year. My thoughts weren’t turned in the direction of a divorce. There was no reason to think of it. Some things actually were better, as I’ve tried to tell you. He was quieter generally but he seemed to express himself on outside things, like politics, more. He had a shrewd, piercing sense of humor. He never said the obvious thing. I thought I saw the man he was going to be in his thirties and forties. It made me proud of him. I remember thinking that if we had a daughter, her friends were going to be a threat to me. It was one of those things that pop into your head and make you laugh aloud.

“In some ways he was kinder and more affectionate. We had reached a kind of leveling-off physically, and there were little acts on his part designed to show how he felt about me. He would see an ad in the newspaper for nightgowns or underwear and point it out, saying that he wanted me to get some. I hated to spend money we couldn’t spare on things like that, but he insisted. I never argued with his selections, because he had excellent taste. That’s another thing—I didn’t dress well when I met him. He was able to articulate the changes I had to make. He wouldn’t say, ‘I like it,’ ‘I don’t like it.’ At first he would say, ‘It isn’t close enough around your waist,’ and then I taught him to say, ‘It has to be taken in.’ He helped me. I mean that.