And I feel like maybe I have no idea. That I’ve got to forty-five years of age and I really don’t know. And people talk about it all the time like it’s, you know, something real, something you can touch—like when we talk about love, we’re all talking about the same thing. But we’re not, are we? It isn’t a real thing. It isn’t anything. And

still has the original curved bow windows at the front and a huge sash window at

And there it is, the point which it all boils down to eventually. The point where there are no words, no theories, no explanations for behaviors that baffle and infuriate and hurt. Just that. Men.

still has the original curved bow windows at the front and a huge sash window at

She draws in her breath: a husband who groomed her as a fourteen-year-old child; a narcissistic mother; two problematic children; and brushes with social services. But the compelling things feel precious somehow, half-formed and delicate, not yet ready for the judgment of her husband.

mottled glass mirror

She looks like a half-finished painting, she observes, waiting for the artist to come back and add the detail.

Then Josie says, “You have to be free in order to be in control, Alix. You have to be free. No baggage. A clean break. Like your friend Mari le Jeune said, the one from your podcast. Remember what she said, about clean breaks. Remember?”

She draws in her breath: a husband who groomed her as a fourteen-year-old child; a narcissistic mother; two problematic children; and brushes with social services. But the compelling things feel precious somehow, half-formed and delicate, not yet ready for the judgment of her husband.