“We have so many great houses, and there's so much I want to do.” He had just provided the backing for a London play, written by a young playwright he had been sponsoring for two years. He loved being a patron of the arts, far more than he liked staying home. He loved his wife and adored his children, but he was bored just hanging around New York. Maxine had made it through eight years of the changes in their circumstances, but she couldn't do it anymore. She wanted stability, sameness, and the kind of settled life that Blake now abhorred. He loved pushing the outer limits of the envelope until there was no envelope at all. He defined the term “free spirit” in ways Maxine could never have predicted. And since he was never around anyway, out of touch most of the time, she figured she might as well do it alone. It had gotten harder and harder to kid herself that she had a husband, and that she could count on him at all. She had finally realized that she couldn't. Blake loved her, but ninety-five percent of the time he was gone. He had his own life, interests, and pursuits, which hardly included her at all anymore.

So with tears and regrets, but the utmost civility, she and Blake had divorced five years before. He gave her the apartment in New York and the house in Southampton, would have given her more houses if she'd wanted, but she didn't, and he had offered her a settlement that would have stunned anyone. He felt guilty about what an absentee husband and father he had been in recent years, but he had to confess that it suited him very well. He hated to admit it but he felt as though he were in a straitjacket in a matchbox, confined to the life Maxine lived in New York.

She refused the settlement, and took only child support for their children. Maxine made more than enough in her practice to support herself, she wanted nothing from him. And as far as she was concerned, it was Blake's windfall, not hers.