“Okay, there’s some very rare, valuable pieces here. I happen to like this kind of stuff,” Frank said. “But anything you don’t like, sell it. Redecorate the whole place if you want.”

“Keep me busy.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

Saying she was bored and irritable-while he went off to visit his girl friend in Boca, a real estate woman. Five and a half years of playing the good wife and now having the Bible thrown at her.

Karen made a mistake then, but was too angry to realize it at the time.

She gave Frank an ultimatum. She said, “No more double standard. If it’s all right for you to fool around, it’s all right for me to fool around. I may not want to, but I’ll do it, buddy, as a matter of principle and you can see how you like it.”

Frank seemed tired. He shook his head and said, “Karen, Karen, Karen-” and began stroking the dog again.

She did have misgivings later, twinges in her stomach whenever she thought about it and realized she had actually threatened him to his face. If that wasn’t being a big girl, what was? She was relieved he never brought it up and would reassure herself with thoughts like, Of course not. Frank knew she’d never have an affair. Frank knew she had simply overstated, that was all, to make a point.

She would replay the scene in her mind and revise it as she went along, keeping her voice in control, maintaining poise. Relying more on innuendo than outright threat. Hinting that she might fool around rather than throwing it in his face. She would recall later that the scene, the argument, had taken place May 10. A date to remember.

On December 2, the same year, Frank was admitted to Holy Cross Hospital with an oxygen mask pressed to his face, a rescue-unit fireman pounding on his chest. He died that afternoon in the Intensive Care Unit at age sixty-one.

Karen couldn’t believe it. Forty-four years old and widowed for the second time, having outlived two Franks, one an automotive engineer, the other with “varied and different business interests.” Aware of herself and feeling-how? analyzing it-feeling relief after the funeral and the mile-long procession with police escort to Memorial Gardens.