“It happens in the way that most important things end up having happened for her: accidentally, and because she does something she is not supposed to do […] in the fashion of many happenstantial occurrences, the result of completely plausible decision making, a little diversion from the norm […] in hindsight […] almost too coincidental: […] and suddenly everything’s free-falling, the universe gleefully seizing that seldom chosen Other Option, […] like a deranged person trying to clear the aisles in a grocery store, which is, as a matter of fact, where she is, the gourmet place two towns over, picking up some last-minute items for a dinner party for her husband, who is turning sixty today.”

The novel’s opening passage establishes its third-person narration. Using nearly stream-of-consciousness language, the passage toggles between metaphysical considerations—like how things happen in life, whether it’s fate or free choice—and everyday mundanity—like buying things for a birthday party. The narration reflects Julia’s chaotic state of mind.

“Marriage was trying; marriage was burying the hatchet. But they had not buried any of their hatchets; instead she’d covered the hatchets with […] decorative hand towels and they were both pretending that the hatchets didn’t exist. She felt Mark’s eyes on her sometimes and wondered what he was seeing, if everyone’s marriage ended up like theirs had, two people who’d once been mad for each other stranded on opposite sides of the kitchen, dimly aware of excess […] emotional transgressions, Animaniacs-shaped pasta about to boil over on the stove, trying to remember how it had been before.”

This passage establishes Julia’s feelings as a young mother about her marriage, developing the theme of Love and Sexual Desire in Marriage. The “Animaniacs-shaped pasta about to boil over on the stove” represents how worn-out she feels in caring for her three-year-old son, Ben. Her exhaustion and lack of openness leads her to avoid sharing her emotional state with her husband, which in turn later leads to her affair.

“There has always been a schism, for her, between what she wants to do as a mother and what she actually does; she has never quite trusted her instincts, never quite been able to venture into territory that feels too soft or tender. She has felt, from the moment Mark presented to her the idea of a child, unwieldy, cast in a production for which she hasn’t had adequate time to prepare.”

Julia struggles with her sense of self and identity as a mother, developing the theme of Personal Identity and Motherhood. In this passage, she describes how she feels inadequate in the role of mother. However, viewed objectively and from her children’s perspective, she’s an excellent mother.