I sense that her weaknesses are in fact her greatest strengths, not morally or ethically mind you, but that her survival instinct is based upon a fundamental weakness. Unfortunately, I also sense that because my investigation - regardless of any evidence it offers to the truth of my hypotheisis - is ultimately threatening to her, I have become an unwanted witness of her life. This is why she has closed all doors to me, and why her allies have been sent to complain that I ”analyze everything about her” in a tone that is as threatening as it is threatened. She is actually a passive terrorist.
She has never been a femme fatale - though I suspect that she auditioned for the role at some point. Femme malade is perhaps a better epithet. One of her sisters died during the polio epidemic in San Francisco during the depression, and it could well be that she too suffers from the residual symptoms of grief, or some other chronic obstructive disease like tuberculosis. Over the years she has learned to ride on it [her disease], to break it in and exploit it, like a wild buck. Her husband has buried his own grief in hers. That's perhaps why he is more than happy to fulfil her doctor's expensive prescriptions for fresh air in a bungalow on a secluded South Pacific beach, or from a deck chair on a Carribbean cruise …loaded with romcom and chicklit obsession novels.
