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end up with Bill Maxwell”), which perhaps reflected a few salient if subliminal aspects of their curious relationship: “[Bill] tells me that I am a little mad and that this is the only distinction my style enjoys. He reproves me for my sexual promiscuity …” What Cheever finally wrote the man was this: “I have been ill and I wanted to be the one to tell you, I remember so vividly, over the years, your attention. I am quite beyond visits and flowers but I do distribute The Collected Short Stories among the doctors. They seem in the end to be mostly what I've written—even Honora Wapshot is forgotten—and thank you for your help with them.” Reading this, Maxwell found himself wishing he'd had the grace years ago “to break through the misunderstanding [before it] was too late,” and his reply (and final letter) to Cheever was “written in tears”: “The stories are safe,” he began, assuring Cheever that his work ranked among the finest of Flaubert, Chekhov, Byron, Yeats; as for what Cheever had called Maxwell's help, it had mostly consisted of the simple “rapture” he'd felt on reading each of Cheever's masterpieces for the first time. He then proceeded to more personal matters. “In recent years”—given Cheever's great success—Maxwell had gotten the impression he'd lost his friend forever: “Your note made it clear that this wasn't true, and I am ashamed of having thought it.”

SUSAN HAD BECOME PREGNANT the previous summer, and she and Calvin Tomkins were married a few months later in the library at Cedar Lane (“It was Tad who suggested that a shot gun might be in order,” Cheever wrote Federico, “but if I bring out the old 16-guage [sic] I might be arrested for the possession of an unliscened [sic] firearm”). As for Ben, he'd been dating the New York Times film critic Janet Maslin, and the two had planned to marry the following June or July; when Ben's father was given six months to live, however, they moved the ceremony to Christmas Eve, 1981. Cheever was delighted by the match, and proved a jolly guest at the wedding (also held in the library), despite his frailty. When the justice of the peace was tardy, Cheever recruited one of the guests, Tony Oursler, to officiate—since, said Cheever, the man's father (Fulton) had written The Greatest Story Ever Told, and hence Tony was the closest thing to a clergyman they were likely to find. As the last vows were spoken, the justice of the peace breathlessly arrived, and the couple were married once more.

Whatever its constraints, Cheever's relationship with his older son had become steady and amiable. Ben had persuaded his father to let Reader's Digest reprint a few of his old stories (some in condensed form), and Cheever also contributed an essay to the magazine, “Signs of Hope,” a rather ponderous homage to his son's long-distance running. “For years, lovers seemed to me to be proof that the world would go on,” the piece begins. “Now marathon runners, gathering by thousands in cities all over the world to pursue the horizons of fatigue and self-esteem, contribute equally to hopefulness.” Cheever had shown the typescript to Tom Smallwood during his February visit, and the young man had permitted himself a quibble or two about this or that line. Cheever erupted: “I was only trying to do something for a place which has gainfully employed my eldest son!” Once he'd calmed down a bit, Cheever fretfully admitted that he was afraid the essay would be the last thing he ever published, as indeed it was.*

Finally, on Valentine's Day, Federico was wed to Mary McNeil in Riverside, California. Only a few weeks before, Cheever had hopefully booked himself an airplane ticket, but when the time came he was simply too ill. “Now this morning Mary and Iole have been driven by Max to take a plane for Fred's California wedding,” he noted. “Mary's eyes fill with tears and there is a potential for a tearful scene but we force beyond this.” It was a terrible blow, but otherwise the thought of his son gave him nothing but joy: Federico's choice of wife was “highly mature,” Cheever reflected, and he was also thrilled