Summary

Chapter 5. Samuel describes how at one point, after Esther had gone away for a week, he and Claire both seemed to feel much better. They navigated, he says, an uneasy, uncomfortable attempt to make love, and later in the week went on a picnic to The Monastery field, where they found a small number of other adults, mostly ill and mostly partnered, having their own picnics without children present. Samuel describes how picnicking on this site was a family habit, even though the sharp-tongued, hyper-logical Esther seemed to dislike the experience intensely. He describes not giving voice to his disappointment at her reactions, commenting that “you stop paying attention to your own feelings when there’s nothing to be done about them” (29). Eventually, he says in narration, the others in the field departed, and Samuel and Claire were left alone, contemplating a...