Michael Malone - Weebly

his happiness lay in a life shared daily with a lover, but
he deceived himself in this assumption, for his wiser self
had actually chosen well for him. As a bachelor priest
he could give a little to a lot without giving the whole lot
(himself) to anyone, which was what he mistakenly
thought he longed to do—if only he were not so
insecure and so much in demand.
But Walter Saar and Evelyn Troyes were ready to
make such gifts. They were honestly unsuited to living
alone. Evelyn had managed to avoid it for more than
forty years, having proceeded directly from her
childhood home to a conservatory dormitory to an
elopement with Hugo Eroica to a marriage with
Blanchard. In fact, she had scarcely so much as slept in
a solitary bedroom and had never, until her daughter,
Mimi, abandoned her for college, lived in an entire
house by herself. She wasn't used to it and she didn't
like it.
Evelyn knew best who she was through a man's
response; without the boundaries of a male surrounding
her, her identity seemed to her to drift away into vapor.
She could not define herself.