Dear Nan:

Responding to your latest post: I missed the whole brandy comment! She opened it for him then. These gestures, remind me of the roses (it was roses, was it?) he sent you, one for each year you were not together. You donated them quickly but the gesture was dear to your heart!

When she said her husband was clean, it made me think that maybe when she was physically intimate with her husband she thought to herself: this is not great, quite boring. I am not excited and it means nothing much to me. But at least he is clean! At least I don’t have to be with someone dirty and stinky!

This is what I was thinking!

You asked what I thought of Francesca’s relationship with her husband, correct? I thought she wanted to accommodate his wishes, that is why she stopped teaching. I think he knew (and he told her so on his death bed) that he knew this is not what she wanted. So he knew all along that she was compromising big time AND he was okay with it all along.

And he never talked to her about it until he was on his death bed. Somehow he thought it was a good deal for her, be the wife and mother that she was. Maybe he thought that her dreams were not realistic, if he at all knew what they were. They definitely did not talk much, at all really about things that mattered, other than day to day practicalities.

anita