Summary

In Chapter 20, Eileen emails Alice, expressing her surprise that Alice is "on another work trip already" (218). She is also hurt that Alice traveled through Dublin and did not visit her. She then interrogates the idea of beauty, wondering about the difference between "superficial ugliness" and substantive beauty (221). She begins questioning her work, and her purpose. She feels defeated about her writing, and her inability to create anything. She writes more about relationships, wishing that she had had at least "one really happy relationship" (223). She has become resigned to never writing "any books," and never having "any children" (223). She realizes that the one thing she wants feels "like a dream, completely unrelated to anything in reality" (224). She says she and Simon will need two bedrooms.

In Chapter 21, one day after Felix finished work, he messaged Alice saying he was in a bad mood and...