Terms of Endearment

Set in Houston, Texas, beginning in 1962, the novel follows Aurora Greenway, a vivacious, imperious 49-year-old widow, and her daughter Emma, a plain, good-hearted young woman married to Thomas "Flap" Horton, a graduate student Aurora considers beneath her. The story opens with Aurora in Emma's cramped garage apartment, criticizing her daughter's appearance, laundry, and marriage. When Emma announces she is pregnant, Aurora erupts into theatrical sobbing, driven by the fear that becoming a grandmother will ruin her chances of finding a new husband.

The novel establishes their relationship through combative morning phone calls in which Aurora critiques Emma's grammar, diet, and life choices. Aurora's world revolves around Rosie Dunlup, her fiercely energetic maid of 22 years, with whom she fights constantly but cannot do without, and Rosie's husband Royce, a delivery truck driver who nurses a decades-long infatuation with Aurora. Her late husband Rudyard lived on patent income and died silently in a lawn chair. She eliminates one suitor, Edward Johnson, a bank vice-president, after he confesses to dating young secretaries.

While Flap is off fishing, Danny Deck, Emma's close writer friend, arrives at the apartment bedraggled and bleeding after his father-in-law beat him. Emma bathes his wounds, and they sleep together. Aurora calls the next morning and hints she saw Danny's car on Emma's street. Aurora hosts a dinner for Alberto, an aging Italian tenor whose career was ended by a stroke. He breaks down weeping, and Aurora consoles him in the garden. Afterward, Aurora tells Emma she could never marry Alberto because he lacks the energy to handle her. When Emma presses about her parents' marriage, Aurora says Rudyard accounted for "thirty to thirty-five percent" of her life.

A pivotal comic sequence begins when Aurora drives General Hector Scott, her retired four-star-general neighbor and most persistent suitor, to a seafood restaurant. After an excellent meal that leaves her too cheerful, the General makes a clumsy advance in the parking lot. On the drive home, she collides with a white Lincoln parked by the road. Vernon Dalhart emerges: a freckled, fidgety oil millionaire who essentially lives in his Lincoln, equipped with telephones, a television, a refrigerator, and a safe. Vernon helps Aurora blame him for the accident. When the General tries to blackmail Aurora into a trip to Tahiti, she abandons him and rides home with Vernon instead.

In Aurora's driveway, Vernon declares he is "plumb in love" with her, his first such declaration at age 50. Inside, they find Rosie crying: Royce has confessed to a five-year affair with a barmaid named Shirley Sawyer. Vernon reconciles the couple by offering Royce a new job. Aurora cooks Vernon dinner, attracted to his decency but doubtful they can bridge their differences. Vernon lives atop a parking garage he owns, sleeping in his Lincoln. On the advice of Old Schweppes, the parking garage's night watchman, he buys a small goat as a gift for Aurora. She catches him on the verge of retreat, shakes him out of his timidity, and invites him in for cards.

Aurora receives an ultimatum from Trevor Waugh, a wealthy Philadelphia yachtsman who has pursued her for 30 years between romances with mothers and their daughters. They dine and dance until dawn, but his ultimatum proves hollow. After Trevor leaves, Aurora sinks into despair. She wakes at four A.M. feeling herself becoming impregnable, beyond the capacity for expectation. Recognizing she must act rather than wait for perfection, she calls General Scott at five, picks a fight, and when he storms over she leads him to her bedroom for the first time, ending years of resistance.

The next morning, Rosie and Vernon discover the General in Aurora's bathrobe retrieving the newspaper from her lawn. Aurora settles into a combative routine with the General while keeping Vernon and Alberto in orbit. When Rosie goes dancing at the J-Bar Korral, a jealous Royce drives his potato chip truck through the rear wall of the dance hall, destroying the bandstand and breaking his ankle. He and Rosie reunite tearfully, and Vernon pays for all damages. Rosie's frustrations later boil over: She attacks Aurora with a pillow, accusing her of causing Royce's wandering, and quits. Aurora tracks her down and they reconcile.

Rosie flees to Shreveport, Louisiana, worn down by raising her children Lou Ann and Little Buster alone after Royce leaves again. Royce is stabbed by the jealous Mitch McDonald, Shirley's former boyfriend. Vernon arranges a company plane to retrieve Rosie. Emma goes into labor and has a boy named Thomas. Aurora establishes a new social arrangement: The General, Vernon, and Alberto will all serve as her regular companions, beginning with a poker evening at her house.

The novel's second half spans 1971 to 1976. In Des Moines, where Flap teaches English, their marriage erodes: He retreats into academic life and student affairs while Emma manages the household and their two sons alone. Emma has an affair with Sam Burns, a melancholy banker, in empty houses the bank is trying to sell. When Flap moves the family to Kearney, Nebraska, Sam dies of a heart attack. Flap confesses his love for Janice, an art teacher. Emma has a destructive affair with Hugh, a cynical colleague who criticizes her sexually and emotionally. She later begins a tender relationship with Richard, Flap's gentle graduate assistant. She gives birth to a daughter, Melanie, who recreates Aurora's willful personality.

On Melanie's third birthday, a routine checkup reveals widespread melanoma. Emma is hospitalized in Omaha. Aurora comes to stay and hangs her treasured Renoir, a small painting of two women in hats that her mother bought in Paris, in Emma's room. One night Emma loses her pain pills in the darkness with her call bell broken, and she realizes she is beyond the help of love: All the people who love her cannot do as much as the pills under her bed. As Emma weakens, the women in the Renoir merge with Aurora's presence until Emma cannot tell whether there are two women in the room or three.

Emma arranges for Aurora to raise the children, overruling her best friend Patsy Clark's offer and Flap's weak claims. She tells Flap he lacks the energy, and she does not want Janice exercising her neurosis on the children. She tells her sons Tommy and Teddy to get haircuts, make friends, and not be afraid of girls, and tells Tommy she already knows he loves her, so he will not have to live with the regret of never having said it. Outside the hospital, Tommy makes a bitter remark about his mother. Aurora slaps him so hard he falls down, then holds him as he finally breaks into tears.

Emma dies in early March and is buried in Houston on a warm, rainy day. Aurora and Patsy stand at the grave in nearly identical outfits. Flap sits in a limousine, having recovered all his first feeling for his wife. Aurora reflects that Emma always made her feel "faintly ridiculous," and that perhaps Emma would have been happier if she had been faintly ridiculous too. The rain stops and the trees drip. Aurora tells Patsy there is no point in standing around like bookends, and they turn to attend to the children and the men.