Recent divorce; the personal Marital Leave

timeline_event

texture · UNDATED (just before / into YDAU)

When: UNDATED (shortly before the YDAU field assignment; the divorce is "recent" as of the desert night)
What: Steeply is freshly divorced and just back from personal "Marital Leave." Marathe notes the white annular band of skin where a wedding ring was (scene 123); at E.T.A. Steeply wears a raglan sweater that had been his wife's (scene 130) and recalls having played tennis only a couple of times, with his wife, feeling "ungainly and simian" (scene 127). The divorce sits under the whole "Helen" assignment.