Althea Patterson

Althea Patterson, whom Art Keller calls Althie, is Art’s wife and the person who most directly challenges his instinct to keep others at a distance. Their relationship begins in college, becomes a marriage just before his departure for Vietnam, and continues through the long absences and withheld truths of his government work. Her importance lies not in changing Art’s habits once and for all, but in being the exception he loves while those habits continue to wound their intimacy.

Identity and Introduction

Art meets Althea on Bruin Walk during his senior year. He approaches her with a claim that they are in the same political science section; it is true, and he has already heard her speak in class. Althea argues her views fiercely and sits somewhat left of Emma Goldman in the narrator’s description. Art is drawn to her intelligence as well as to her appearance. She is presented as distinctive rather than conventionally pretty, with green eyes and an angular face; his recollection makes clear that his attraction is inseparable from the force of her mind.

Their early exchange also establishes a teasing ease between them. When Art describes himself as only partly Mexican, Althea answers with affectionate irreverence. Their banter makes room for a directness unlike the guardedness that governs much of Art’s life. The contrast becomes central to their marriage: he can be open and tender with her, but that closeness does not dissolve his ingrained defenses.

Marriage and Art’s Secrecy

Art and Althea marry a few weeks before he ships out to Vietnam. He writes long, passionate letters while away, but leaves out what he actually does. Althea understands that he has changed by the time he returns, as war would change him, and that the reserve already present in him has grown stronger. He can establish great emotional distance between them and deny that he is doing so; at other times, he returns to the intensely affectionate man she fell in love with.

The pattern is more than a temporary consequence of deployment. Art has learned secrecy and self-sufficiency since childhood, and professional training has sharpened his ability to compartmentalize. The narrative identifies Althea as the exception to his self-reliant way of living, but it also shows the limits of that exception: loving her does not make him consistently disclose his work or acknowledge the distance he creates. Their relationship therefore moves between genuine tenderness and a separation Art can impose without naming it.

The DEA Decision and Repeated Absence

After watching the final helicopters leave Saigon on television, Art drinks heavily, as other veterans do, and accepts an opportunity to move to the newly formed DEA. Before deciding, he discusses the change with Althea. He believes the new work may be a war worth fighting, and one that can be won. The conversation places her inside a consequential choice, even though the choice will again take him away from her.

Althea is relieved when Art considers changing jobs and encourages him to take the DEA position, despite the additional absence it entails. He leaves for another three months, returns only briefly, gets her pregnant, and departs again, this time for Mexico. From there he sends more passionate letters that still conceal what he is doing. He presents himself as inactive and self-pitying; Althea’s reply presses him either to act or to quit and come home. She even offers a practical alternative, saying her father could quickly find him a position on a senator’s staff. Art does not take that route. Instead, he gets up and goes to see a saint.

The sequence underscores both Althea’s support and her inability to make the decision for him. She encourages his service, but also gives him a clear way back to domestic life. Art chooses neither a full explanation of his work nor the offered return to a safer career; his answer is to continue along his own path.

Intimacy and Distance

Art’s reflections repeatedly register his longing for Althea. Missing her is not a sign that the marriage has ended; it is the emotional counterpoint to the absences he keeps choosing. The account holds those truths together: he loves and misses her, yet his letters omit the substance of his work, and his private discipline of withholding can leave her outside the life he is leading.

Althea’s defining role is thus relational rather than professional. She is the person with whom Art discusses a major career decision, the partner who encourages him while offering him a way home, and the intimate presence against which his defensive isolation becomes visible. The marriage does not erase his secrecy, and the evidence does not suggest that her support resolves their strain. Instead, her place in his life makes the cost of that secrecy legible: even the person who can touch him most deeply must contend with the distance he has learned to keep.