“I’ve always been good. Good daughter, good wife, good mother. Dutiful. Straight As.” Priya comes from an Indian immigrant family of modest means. For her, “what do I want?” has never been separated from “what do they want from me?” She never partied, drank, or stayed out late, and she had her first joint at twenty-two. After medical school, she married the right guy and even welcomed her parents into their home before buying them a retirement condo. At forty-seven, she is left with the nagging question, “If I’m not perfect, will they still love me?” In the back of her mind there is a voice that wonders what life is like for those who are not so “good.” Are they more lonely? More free? Do they have more fun?

Priya’s affair is neither a symptom nor a pathology; it’s a crisis of identity, an internal rearrangement of her personality. In our sessions, we talk about duty and desire, about age and youth. Her daughters are becoming teenagers and enjoying a freedom she never knew. Priya is at once supportive and envious. As she nears the mid-century mark, she is having her own belated adolescent rebellion.