Summary

The first-person narrator, only identified as C, describes how her husband left her. He spent a year in high-security prison for financial crimes, then left for Santo Domingo. During his prison sentence, the couple exchanged emotional letters about his imprisonment and his emotional state while C sent him dozens of books and magazines to keep him occupied. In one letter, her husband says he dreamt of their trip to Cyprus together, and it makes C wonder whether these letters will bring them closer together than in the latter years of their marriage. However, when he is released the two feel they are “more than strangers” and he leaves almost immediately to travel (126). C is devastated and listless, and despite her position as a violinist in the New York Philharmonic, cannot even connect with her music.

C moves to the Adirondacks cabin the couple...