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Stella arrives promptly, ringing the doorbell of our small Chelsea apartment. As she enters, the spring breeze blows the voile curtains into the room like flags. Wearing a soft, dark-blue velvet dress which shows off her slim, supple body and contrasts with her pale smooth skin, she is smiling shyly. She looks, I think, as she always does, as though she has a secret. It is a year since Stella’s husband, Isaac, died unexpectedly, and we have not seen her since his memorial. Isaac was married twice. He divorced his first wife, a brilliant Harvard-educated lawyer like Isaac himself, in