The Dangerous Age

A matrimonial edifice, weather-worn after twenty-two winters, quivers beneath the weight of habit: Mary Emerson mothers her spouse, John, until the man’s virility calcifies into boyish obsequiousness. When corporate errands spirit him to Chicago’s glittering canyons, the stifling cocoon of domesticity ruptures against the champagne effervescence of Gloria Sanderson, a flapper whose laugh shimmers like mica. Their liaison—half revenge, half resurrection—culminates in a coward’s epistle posted in the iron dawn, only for John to stumble upon Gloria twined around her fiancé like poison ivy on marble. Shame detonates; he sprints through sooty rail yards to retract the letter, fingers clawing at departing steel. Fate, ever the sadist, whistles the train away; the envelope lands in Mary’s lap, its paper still warm with treachery. Yet the wife, seasoned by silent epiphanies, seals her heartbreak behind a smile, choosing the artful quietude of mercy over the clamor of accusation.