One Sunday afternoon shortly after my visit, Ben came over, and he and Sally and Flavio went out to sit by the small pool. Sally, tired and jet-lagged, fell asleep in a deck chair. When she awoke, Ben and Flavio were gone—probably inside getting a snack, Sally thought. She was warm and wanted to swim, but there were leaves in the pool, so she went to the maintenence shed to get the pool net. Inside the shed she found Ben and Flavio, snacking, as she put it, on each other. THERE ARE QUALITIES THAT survive an internal medicine residency, but meekness is not among them. I didn’t think meekness survived law school, either, which is why it surprised me when Sally, after her split with Flavio, moved back into her parents’ house. Ben had never left. To me, Sally’s move seemed like madness; I could understand it only as the message (largely for Ben’s benefit, I thought) that family mattered over all. If I had to pick an adjective for Sally’s state then, it would “seething,”
