David

David is the husband in the story. He decides rather abruptly in the opening of the story that he is not going to go to work but will instead go back to school to finish his Ph.D. Over the course of the story, David changes from an attentive husband who falls asleep and awakens with his wife to a man who spends a great deal of time out of the house, walking the dog or visiting with his neighbors. Because the story is told from the young wife's point of view, there are large gaps in the reader's understanding of the husband. For example, when the wife calls home to check on her watch, no one answers, so the reader and the narrator are unable to determine what the husband is doing. Indeed, David is even less defined than the narrator in this story; the reader is...