Summary

pp. 213 – 252. This section, set more than a dozen years after the end of the previous section, begins with a conversation between Regina and Myrna, the woman hired by Regina and her husband Matthew to take care of their son, Lion. The conversation refers to several long messages left on Regina’s answering machine by a man who narration eventually reveals to be Dutra. Regina’s narration also describes the circumstances of her life – as the best-selling author of a popular pair of books telling the story of a “young girl in the city” (216), as well as how she married the solid and reliable Matthew. That night, Regina calls Dutra, now a successful surgeon, who reveals that he has gotten married to a woman he barely knows. Regina and Dutra banteringly arrange that Dutra and his new wife (Nikki) should come to dinner at Regina...