It is November, and Liz decides she must do something about David. She has not communicated with him since July. She still loves him but knows they make each other miserable. At one point, he suggested that if they just acknowledged the shortcomings of their relationship and decided to live together anyway, they would at least be happy not to be apart. The other option, that one of them might change, is unlikely.

She wishes she could be more like her mother. Her mother never asks anybody for anything. She recalls the conversation she had with her mother in New York just before she left for her year away. Her mother asked what happened with David. When she told her, her mother confided that what Liz wants from a relationship, “a constant level of closeness” (91), she had wanted. When her husband couldn’t give it, she opted for a stable marriage with her husband as her best friend.

Liz’s awareness of her mother’s choices makes her determined to examine hers. She decides she must break up with David and sends him an email. She goes to the Internet café hoping he will respond that he wants her back, that he will change.