LIFE ESTATES

Hearon's women, captured in lighthearted to heavy-weather isolation, are often a bit stir-crazy within constricting marriages (Hug Dancing, 1991), or feel in danger of disappearing as ego- shrunk victims of others' cheerful exploitation (the shrewd, funny Owning Jolene, 1988). Here, though, is a more solemn, searching story about two widows who, at 55, examine their long friendship, their loves past and present, marriage—and death. Sarah, whose husband, Nolan, died only months ago, and who continues her work as co-owner of a wallpaper store, leaves her South Carolina home to have a reunion with old school chum Harriet in East Texas. Harriet's husband has been recently killed in an auto accident. To Sarah, marriage was ``an encasement.'' She weeps for Nolan's rotten luck and their falling out but cherishes a new freedom—though it's not complete since, with a legacy of ``life estate'' (which she refuses), Nolan could still ``control her from the grave.'' But like her 78-year-old mother, entomologist Edith, jauntily on her way to Patagonia to study spiders, Sarah is emotionally outward bound. She has sealed palship with Dr. Will Perry, 70. They run their dogs; they make love. On the other hand, Harriet—blond, gorgeous legs, lusciously chic—is devastated by widowhood, scared, and buying guns. She's no longer ``a wife...I'm unemployed.'' On their visits back and forth, other differences- -known but unexamined hitherto—become more acute. Then Harriet is diagnosed with cancer. The two friends will have their last visit, during which Harriet's wild, lonely anguish unexpectedly erupts. At the Texas gravesite, Sarah, now seeing clear Marquand-style, knows, ``People central to your life could vanish. We have so little time, one with another.'' Some characters are drawn in primary colors, and Sarah lectures a bit much; but the portrait of prom girl Harriet is touching and convincing.