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At times, she wondered if she meant to destroy her marriage. But most often she went out of excitement or curiosity⁠—⁠to see again what it was to go to his house, to undress, to have an affair. But to approach an affair so lovelessly was perhaps not to really understand what one was at all.

She and Peter had begun dating at nineteen. She’d broken up with him twice in college. Both times, he’d convinced her to take him back, saying he couldn’t live without her. She didn’t really believe him capable of such extreme emotion. He’d always be stable and predictable, she felt.

She’d seen …

The next morning, she changed into her swimsuit and went swimming. She again found Eleu sitting on his dock.

“Do you want to come inside?” he asked her. Already she wondered if something would happen.

The walls of his house were paneled with dark wood. On them hung very ordinary photographs, …

He didn’t really believe she didn’t want a house on Cabot Lake, just as it was hard for him to believe she was ever truly angry with him. She thought of the cavalcade of workers required to keep two or more places running. She wanted something easily manageable, one small place in the world, entire…

[...] Somehow Rosaline managed to irritate both Elena and Theresa almost immediately, by describing herself as “just a social worker.”

“This is just not⁠—⁠you have to be confident. You have to be more confident. Social work is amazing,” Theresa said. But Theresa would never have been a social wo…