On "The Letters" by Edith Wharton (14,438 words) *****

This story is many things and one that seems, at first, particularly timely in a nation focused on the #MeToo movement. It's a tale of a man taking advantage of a naive young woman. Or at least, that's what it seems at the beginning, when Mr. Dearing first takes a pass at his nanny, an older single gal whose life has not turned out so well. Disadvantaged, with few good marriage prospects, she's falls hard for the married man. And then . . . the story takes a strange turn. Mr. Dearing's wife dies. The two might actually be able to settle down together. Does the man really want her, however? It seems so--and then, maybe not, and then maybe so, and then maybe not. The middle portion of this long piece reads like many a real-life romance, the way we never know someone's heart or true motives. But in the end, the story becomes something other than that, something about the will, about how sometimes truth is less important than willing one's self into happiness. Read the story here.