The XX Factor: What women really think.

Elizabeth Edwards Retells Her Story (To Herself)

On the other hand, denial is not all bad! She says straight-up that she is consciously repositioning her husband in their children's eyes, buffing up his image and legacy where they are concerned. Because they are his constituents now, and she wants them to see "their father being an advocate for poverty, not for this current picture of him to be the one they carry with them, as young people and as adults." (She also makes clear that if it ever was all about him, those days are over: "[T]he decisions I make are based entirely on what is the best thing for my children.'') She did graduate work in English lit before going to law school, and she's also using her considerable narrative powers to reshape the story she tells herself. Which is something we all do as life goes on, though rarely as dramatically as this: "It's an ongoing process of finding your feet again, retelling your story to yourself. You thought you were living in one novel, and it turns out you were living in another." From Jane Austen to Jay McInerney—ouch.

Asking whether she's "over'' the betrayal is not the remotely the right question, she says, and points out that "had her leg been amputated, instead of a child dying or her husband having an affair, people would not ask: 'Are you over that leg thing yet?' " But while she's working on that leg thing, "she finds comfort in 'Anthem,' a Leonard Cohen song whose lyrics she has posted in her kitchen. ... Reciting the words, Edwards said: "Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."