A Widow for One Year

by John Irving

The problem was, as Marion grew older—and although she would always be six years younger than Ted—Ted’s interest in younger women persisted. The nostalgia for innocence in the mind of an older man was a subject that the sixteen-year-old Eddie O’Hare had encountered

“We can’t see Thomas and Timothy anymore,” her father insisted, “but they are not gone from our imaginations. When we think of them, we see them there.” “They’re just gone from this world,” Ruth said. (For the most part, she was repeating what she’d heard before.) “They’re in another world?” “Yes, Ruthie.” “Am I going to get dead?” the four-year-old asked. “Will I get all broken?” “Not for a long, long time!” her father said. “ I’m going to get broken before you are, and not even I am going to get broken for a long, long time.” “Not for a long, long time?” the child repeated. “I promise,

She did not know then (that summer night in 1958) that her father was beginning what would be her favorite of his stories. He would work on it all that summer; it would be the only piece of writing that Ted Cole’s soon-to-arrive writer’s assistant, Eddie O’Hare, would actually get to “assist” Ted with. And while none of Ted Cole’s books for children would ever enjoy the commercial success or the international renown of The Mouse Crawling Between the Walls, the book Ted began that night was the one Ruth would like the best. It was called, of course, A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound, and it would always be special to Ruth because she was its inspiration.

would be to drive three quarters of an hour each way to Montauk and back; only the fish store in Montauk would save squid ink for the famous author and illustrator of children’s books. (When the fishmonger himself was beyond hearing distance, the fishmonger’s wife would repeatedly tell Eddie that she was Ted’s “biggest fan.”) Ruth’s father’s

“But, Ruthie, she’s not married,” her father had replied. “She’s nobody’s mother. I thought you’d approve of that.” Ruth Cole the novelist would eventually come to describe her father’s line of work as “Unhappy mothers—that’s my father’s field.” But why wouldn’t Ted have recognized an unhappy mother when he saw one? After all—at least for the first five years that followed the death of his sons—Ted lived with the unhappiest mother of them all.

And, truly, there was no conscious sexual interest in her tracing the borders of Eddie’s bare shoulders. That her compulsive scrutiny of young men Eddie’s age might become sexual was, at this point in time, strictly her husband’s premonition.

Many a faithful wife has tolerated, even accepted, the painful betrayals of a philandering husband; in Marion’s case, she put up with Ted because she could see for herself how inconsequential his many women were to him. If he’d had one other woman, someone who’d held him under an enduring spell, Marion might have been persuaded to get rid of him. But Ted was never abusive to her; and especially after the deaths of Thomas and Timothy, he was consistent in his tenderness toward her. After all, no one but Ted could have comprehended and respected the eternity of her sorrow. But now there was something horribly unequal

Lately she almost hated Ted for absorbing his grief better than she could absorb hers. What Marion could only guess was that Ted might have hated her for the superiority of her sadness. Marion believed that they had been wrong to have Ruth. At every phase of growing up, the child was a painful reminder of the corresponding phases of Thomas’s and Timothy’s childhoods. The Coles had never needed nannies for their boys; Marion had been a complete mother then. But they had virtually nonstop nannies for Ruth—for although Ted demonstrated a greater willingness to be with the child than Marion demonstrated, he was inadequate at performing the necessary daily tasks. However incapable Marion was at performing these,

the summer of ’58, Marion herself had become her husband’s principal unhappiness. Five years after the deaths of Thomas and Timothy, Marion believed she caused Ted more grief than their dead sons did. Marion also feared that she might not always be able to keep herself from loving her daughter. And if I let myself love Ruth, Marion thought, what will I do if something happens to her? Marion knew that she could not go through losing a child again. Ted had recently told Marion that he wanted to “try separating” for the summer—just

But now . . . Marion didn’t know what to do. There were times when she couldn’t bear even to talk to Ruth. Understandably, this child would want her father. So is that the deal? Marion wondered. He takes all that’s left: the house, which she loved but didn’t want—and Ruth, whom she either couldn’t or wouldn’t allow herself to love. Marion would take her boys. Of Thomas and Timothy, Ted could keep what he could remember. (I get to keep

When she opened her car door and stepped outside to have a closer look at those passengers disembarking the ferry, she was as sad a woman as she’d been at any moment in the past five years; yet her mind was clearer than it had ever been. She would let Ted go—she would even let her daughter go with him. She would leave them both before Ted had a chance to leave her. As Marion walked toward the ferry slip, she was thinking: Everything but the photographs. For a woman who’d just come to these momentous conclusions, her step was inappropriately steady. To everyone who saw her, she seemed positively serene.

a sleeveless summer dress, Mrs. Havelock bounced and she was hairy. Since the warm weather, not a few of the boys, in addition to calling her Bouncy, had taken to calling her Furry. By either name, the very thought of her gave Eddie O’Hare a hard-on. “The next thing you know, she’ll stop shaving her legs,” said Eddie’s mother. The thought of

Since Mr. Havelock was a colleague of Minty’s in the English Department, it was Dot O’Hare’s opinion that her husband should speak to him about the disturbing inappropriateness of his wife’s “ bohemianism” at an all-boys’ school. But Minty, although he could bore with the best of bores, knew better than to interfere with the clothing or the shaving—or the lack thereof—of another man’s wife. “My dear Dorothy,” was all that Minty would say, “Mrs. Havelock is a European.”

When they were back on the road again, Minty regaled Eddie on the subject of the intrinsic sullenness that was so often the result of a subpar secondary-school education. “The dulling of the mind is a terrible thing, Edward,” his father instructed him. They

When Eddie turned the key in the ignition, the Mercedes gave a responsive purr. When Eddie stole a look at Marion, he saw that she was evaluating him in a way that was as foreign to him as her car was.

don’t know where we’re going,” he confessed to her. “Just drive,” Marion told the boy. “I’ll give you all the directions you need.”

Notwithstanding that the four-year-old Ruth would witness her mother being mounted from behind by a sixteen-year-old boy, Ruth’s parents would never raise their voices in anger toward, or in hatred of, each other—nor would her mother or her father ever speak truly ill of the other to Ruth. In this aspect of their destroyed marriage, Ted and Marion were models of decent behavior. Never mind that the arrangements concerning the rental house were as seedy as the unfortunate dwelling itself. Ruth never had to inhabit that house. In the real estate parlance of the Hamptons in 1958, it was a so-called carriage house; in reality, it was an airless one-bedroom apartment that had been hastily assembled and cheaply furnished over a two-car garage. It was on Bridge Lane in Bridgehampton—not more than two miles from the Coles’ house on Parsonage Lane in Sagaponack—and, by night, it sufficed as a place

was more talkative than Eddie had known her to be. “I was already pregnant with Thomas when I married Ted—when I was only a year older than you are,” she told him. (The difference in their ages was a recurrent theme for her.) “When you were born, I was twenty-three. When you’re my age, I’ll be sixty-two,” she went on. And twice she made a reference to her gift to him: the pink cashmere cardigan. “How did you like my little

And every day and every night, Ruth would lead the nannies, or her mother or father, or Eddie, through the gallery of photographs hanging in the Coles’ house. If she touched that photo, could the glass cut her? If she dropped this one, was it also glass and would it break? Why did glass break, anyway? And if glass could cut you, why would you want any glass in your house? But before

When Eddie returned to the Coles’ house, all the upstairs lights were on. Ruth could be soothed only by being carried from photograph to photograph. Eddie volunteered to complete the guided tour, so Marion could go back to bed, but Marion seemed to be enjoying herself; in fact, Marion was aware that this would probably be her last journey through the photographic history of her dead boys with her daughter in her arms. Marion was actually prolonging the narrative that accompanied each picture. Eddie fell asleep in his room, but with the door to the upstairs hall open; for a while, he could hear Ruth’s and Marion’s

“In the drawings, she was somehow more than naked,” he began. “I know,” Marion whispered to him. She kissed the top of his head. “It was not just that she was naked,” Eddie insisted. “It was as if you could see everything that she must have submitted to. She looked like she’d been tortured or something.” “I know,”

poster art, always a favorite in the summer, featured movie posters of the thirties—Greta Garbo as Anna Karenina, Margaret Sullavan as the woman who dies and becomes a ghost at the end of Three Comrades. Also, liquor and wine advertisements were popular poster material: there was a dangerous-looking woman sipping a Campari and soda, and a man as handsome as Ted Cole was drinking a martini made with just the right amount and the right brand of vermouth. Cinzano, Eddie nearly said aloud—he was trying to imagine what it might be like to work

“What sort of drawings do you have in mind?” Mrs. Mountsier asked. “Well. At first I would want to draw you and your daughter together,” Ted told her. “That way, when I draw each of you separately, the presence of the one who’s missing is . . . well, somehow, there.” “Wow! Do you want to do it, Mom?” Glorie asked. (Effie was rolling her eyes again, but Ted never paid much attention to someone who wasn’t attractive.) “I don’t know. How long would it take?” Mrs. Mountsier asked. “Or which of us would you want to draw first? I mean separately. I mean, after you’ve drawn us together.”

Ted could tell what Glorie was already thinking about. Glorie would be the easy one. And then . . . what a pleasantly long fall and winter it might be! (Ted was imagining the vastly slower seduction of the grieving Mrs. Mountsier—it might take months, even a year.) It called upon tact to permit both the mother and daughter to drive him back to Sagaponack. Mrs. Mountsier volunteered; then she realized that she’d hurt her daughter’s feelings, that Glorie truly had her heart set on driving the famous author and illustrator home. “Oh, please— you do it, then, Glorie,” Mrs. Mountsier

his undeserved escape from Mrs. Vaughn, and in the stimulating company of Mrs. Mountsier and her daughter, Ted Cole’s overriding thought repeated itself in his mind like a litany. Lust begets lust, begets lust, begets lust—over and over again. That was the thrill of it.

Poor Effie was ahead of her time: she was a young woman of integrity and insight and intelligence, trapped in a body that most men either ignored or spurned; of the three women in the dark-green Saab on that Friday afternoon, Effie was the only one with the wisdom to see that Ted Cole was as deceitful as a damaged condom. For a heart-stopping

the bottom was Marion’s pink cashmere cardigan; she’d also included her lilac-colored silk camisole and matching panties, despite her observation that pink with lilac was an unwise combination. She knew it was the décolletage (and the lace) that had appealed to Eddie.

skate with its face like a Halloween mask, and its barbed tail; a dead seagull.)

And, standing in the four-year-old’s room watching her sleep, Eddie found it easy to speculate that everything would be all right. There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep.

And it is often in the area of left turns that a driver’s patience is tested in a most subtle but most specific way—namely, when you are stopped and waiting to turn left across a lane of oncoming traffic, you must never, ever turn your wheels to the left in anticipation

turn you are waiting to make. Never—not ever! “Anyway,” Ted continued, “Thomas was one of those impatient young men who would often turn his wheels to the left while anticipating a left-hand turn, although his father and his mother—and even his younger brother—had repeatedly told Tommy not to turn his wheels until he was actually making the turn. Do you know why, Eddie?” Ted asked. “So that, if you are rear-ended by a vehicle coming up behind you, you will not be pushed into the lane of oncoming traffic,” Eddie answered. “You would simply be pushed straight ahead, staying in your own lane.” “Who taught you

wants?” Ted asked Eddie. “Not me,” Eddie said. “I’ve been fired—isn’t that right?” “For Christ’s sake . . . at least come with me, then,” Ted told the sixteen-year-old. “I better stay by the phone,” Eddie said. “If he has a gun and shoots you, I’ll call the police.” But

would recommend a berm—actually, three berms,” Eduardo said. “And on top of the berms, to hold the soil, I would suggest some Russian olives. They do well here, and the leaves are nice—a sort of silvery green. They have fragrant yellow flowers and an olivelike fruit. Oleaster is another name for them.”

“There’s always privet,” Eduardo Gomez replied. The small man seemed to shiver a little when he thought of the hedge where he’d hung dying in the exhaust fumes. Nevertheless, the gardener could work wonders with privet: in his care, Mrs. Vaughn’s privet had grown an average of eighteen inches a year. “You just got to feed it and water it, and most of all prune it,” the gardener added. “Sure—let’s do privet, then,” Ted said. “I like hedges.” “Me, too,”

Conchita would end up cooking for Ted and Ruth; she would not only become Ruth’s principal nanny, but when Ted took a trip, Conchita and Eduardo would move into the house on Parsonage Lane and look after Ruth as if they were her mother and father. And the Gomez’s granddaughter, Maria, who was Ruth’s age, would be her frequent playmate in the years that Ruth was growing up. Getting fired by Mrs. Vaughn would have only happy and prosperous results for Eduardo; soon his principal income would be from Ted Cole, who would also provide for Conchita’s principal income. As an employer, Ted would prove

future novelist, if never a hugely successful one, Eddie O’Hare was a young man with an instinct for spotting closure; as such, he was happy to see the clam-truck driver again. Eddie explained to the driver the task at hand: having “forgotten” to ask Ted Cole for his autograph, the boy didn’t want to disappoint his mom and dad. “Let me try,” the clam-truck driver said. Thus, in the lee of the pilothouse on the wind-blown upper deck, the driver of a clam truck rendered a flawless imitation of the best-selling author’s signature. After only a half-dozen attempts in the notebook,

gratitude, Eddie offered the clam-truck driver Ted Cole’s fountain pen. “You gotta be kidding,” the clam-truck driver said. “Take it—it’s yours,” Eddie told him. “I really don’t want it.” He really didn’t want the pen, which the clam-truck driver happily clipped to the inside pocket of his dirty windbreaker. The man smelled of hot dogs and beer, but also—especially

Penny Pierce would not mince words in her reply. (“Hi yourself. Remember you? Who could forget sixty times in—what was it?—six or seven weeks? If it’s a summer job you want, it’s yours.”) In addition to the frame-shop job, Eddie would, of course, be Mrs. Pierce’s lover. The summer of ’60 would start out with Eddie staying in a guest bedroom of Mrs. Pierce’s newly acquired property on First Neck Lane, until such a time as he found suitable lodging of his own. But they became lovers before he found

Eddie didn’t hesitate in replying to the forthright but smelly man. “I’m going to be a writer,” Eddie replied. Surely the sixteen-year-old couldn’t have imagined the grief he would occasionally cause. He would hurt the Havelocks, without ever meaning to—not to mention Penny Pierce, whom he had meant to hurt only a little. And the Havelocks

“Now there’s a lucky guy!” the clam-truck driver said. “But don’t get me wrong. I just look at other women, I don’t mess around. I been married for almost thirty-five years—my high-school

school sweetheart. We’re pretty happy, I guess. She’s not great-looking but she’s my wife. It’s like the clams.” “Excuse me?” Eddie said. “The wife, the clams . . . I mean, maybe it’s not the most exciting choice, but it works,” the clam-truck driver explained. “I wanted my own trucking business, at least my own truck. I didn’t want to drive for nobody else. I used to haul lots of things—other stuff. But it was complicated. When I saw I could make it with just the clams, it was easier. I kind of lapsed into the clams, you might say.”

Eddie and the driver walked to the bow of the upper deck, where they faced into the wind. Eddie’s mother and father were waving madly from the docks; their dutiful son waved back. Both Minty and Dot were weeping; they hugged each other and wiped each other’s wet faces, as if Eddie were returning safely from a war. Rather than feel his usual embarrassment, or even the slightest shame at his parents’ hysterical behavior, Eddie realized how much he loved them and how fortunate he was to have the kind of parents Ruth Cole would never know. Then the gangplank chains, lowering the ferry’s ramp, commenced

Athletic Club, and despite the fact that Eddie was of an age and background that felt comfortable in coats and ties—after all, he was an Exonian—the club doorman always looked at Eddie’s clothes as if they were in violation of the code. Without a plan, Eddie jogged along Central Park South in what had become a downpour. He wished vaguely, as he approached first the St. Moritz and then the Plaza, that he would discover a string of taxis waiting

“Published in 1980, when she was only twenty-six,” Eddie intoned, “Ruth Cole’s first novel, The Same Orphanage, was set in a rural New England village that was renowned for its history of supporting alternative lifestyles. Both a socialist and a lesbian commune had prospered there, but they

concludes with the bitter dissolution of the two women’s friendship did not make every feminist happy. That the woman who chooses to have the abortion is unable to get pregnant with her ex-boyfriend was denounced by some prochoice feminists as “anti-abortion mythology,” although Ruth never implies that the woman can’t get pregnant because of her previous abortion. “Maybe she can’t get pregnant because she’s thirty-eight,” Ruth said in an interview, which was denounced by several women who said they were speaking on behalf of all those women over forty who are able

to get pregnant. It was that kind of novel—it wasn’t going to escape scot-free. The divorced woman in The Same

And Ruth distanced herself from not a few of her more avid readers by admitting that she’d never had an abortion. It was insulting to some of her readers who’d had abortions that Ruth had “just imagined” having one. “I’m certainly not opposed to having an abortion, or to anyone else having one,” Ruth said. “In my case, it just never came up.” As Ruth well knew, an abortion “came up” on two more occasions for Hannah Grant. They had applied to the same colleges—only the best ones. When Hannah didn’t get into most

considered trying to get Eddie’s attention. Instead she looked up at the stagehand, who was ogling her breasts. If Ruth had to pick one thing that most men were utterly stupid about, it was that they didn’t seem to know that it was obvious to a woman when a man was staring at her breasts.

the sixties, to no one’s surprise, she was a socialist, in the seventies a feminist. When she lived in New York, she thought that life in the Hamptons, which she called “the country,” was suitable only for fair-weather weekends; to live in the Hamptons year-round, or in bad weather, was strictly for bumpkins and other dullards.

When she left Manhattan for a year-round residence in the Hamptons—and for her second marriage—she pronounced that city life was fit only for sexual predators and thrill-seekers who were without her capacity for self-knowledge. (After many years in Bridgehampton, Eleanor continued to think of the south fork of Long Island as rural, for she had no experience with genuine country living. She had attended