Monogamy

What she wanted now, she realized, was to give up on people

But she knew, even before she and Graham spoke openly about it with each other, that a life together had begun

almost every gesture, every remark, as controlling, as dangerous for her

she left all of it behind, thinking of it as the price she was paying for her freedom. At the time, she thought there ought to be a price, she felt so guilty, so ashamed of this failure.

Now Annie remembered that later that night, just as she was finally dropping off to sleep, Graham had spoken to her out of the dark in his gravelly voice: “Are you allowed to say that your own child makes you almost unbearably sad?”

Graham offered his theory: the problem was that they both felt their mothers should have been better at being women. At being wives. “They should have held on to our fathers for us,” he said. “It was all their fault.”

Had she? Had she ever loved anyone? She felt herself to be without love—it seemed a kind of incapacity, a hollowness within her. This was the first time she had this thought so clearly, and also the first time she connected it—slowly, over some months of self-examination—to her photography. In her work, she felt, she was like him, like Alan. Cold, removed. Was it possible that this was why she’d chosen it?

he knew where he was going, he knew what he wanted. Annie was shakier on those issues