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polishing his paws by the fire and he smiled at her one night in the apartment he'd gotten her. It wasn't sumptuous, but for Tana and Jean, it was more than enough, two bedrooms, a living room, dining room, handsome kitchen. The building was modern and well built and clean, and they had a view of the East River from the living room windows. It was a far cry from the elevated train in Jean's old apartment.
    “Do you know,” she looked at him with a smile, “I've never been happier in my life.”
    “Neither have I.”
    But that was only days before Marie Durning tried to take her own life. Someone told her that Arthur was having an affair, although they didn't say with whom, and things were touch and go with her after that. Six months later, the doctors began talking of letting her go home, and by then Jean had worked for Arthur Durning for over a year. Tana was happy in her new school, new home, new life, as was Jean. And suddenly it was as though everything stopped. Arthur went to see Marie and came home looking grim.
    “What did she say?” Jean looked at him with wide, terrified eyes. She was thirty years old now. She wanted security, stability, not a clandestine affair for the rest of her life. But she had never objected to their life because she knew how desperately ill Marie Durning was, and how it worried him. But only the week before he had been talking about marriage to Jean. He looked at her now with a bleak expression she had never seen before, as though he had no hope left, no dreams.
    “She said that if she can't come home to us, she'll try to commit suicide again.”
    “But she can't do that to you. She can't keep threatening you for the rest of your life.” Jean wanted to scream, and the bitch of it was that Marie could threaten, and did. She came home three months after that, with only a tenuous grip on her own sanity. She was back at the hospital by Christmas that year, home by spring, and this time she held out until fall, and began drinking heavily over bridge lunches with her friends. All in all it went on for more than seven years.
    When she came out of the hospital the first time, Arthur was so upset that he actually asked Jean to help her out. “She's so helpless, you don't understand … she's nothing like you, sweetheart. She can't cope … she can barely think.” And for love of Arthur, Jean found herself in the unenviable position of being the mistress caring for the wife. She spent two or three days a week, during the day, in Greenwich with her, trying to help her run the house. Marie was desperately afraid of the help; they all knew that she drank. And so did her kids. At first they seemed to view her with despair, and eventually with scorn. It was Ann who hated her most, Billy who cried when she got drunk. It was a nightmarish scene, and just like Arthur, within a few months, Jean was trapped. She couldn't let her down, let her go … it would have been like deserting her parents. It was as though this time she could make things happen right. Even though, in the end, Marie came to an almost identical end as Jean's parents. She was going to meet Arthur in town for a night at the ballet, and Jean swore that she was sober when she left, at least she thought she was, but she must have had a bottle with her. She spun out on an icy patch on the Merritt Parkway halfway to New York, and died instantly.
    They were both still grateful that Marie never knew of their affair, and the agony of it all was that Jean had been fond of her. She had cried at the funeral more than the children had, and it had taken her weeks to be willing to spend a night with Arthur again. Their affair had gone on for eight years, and now he was afraid of what his children would say. “In any case, I've got to wait a year.” She didn't disagree with that, and anyway he spent a great deal of time with her. He was thoughtful and attentive. She had never had any complaints. But it was important to her that Tana not suspect