51 pages • 1 hour read
Rocky wakes suddenly from a nightmare about dropping a baby into the ocean. She’s hungover and realizes that she and Nick fought the night before. He’s obviously still upset. He tells her that he doesn’t want to argue all the time, and she agrees. However, she reflects that in the moment she often does want to argue, and perhaps that’s the problem. Nevertheless, Nick was always somewhat emotionally disconnected from her and their children, and she identifies this aloofness as part of their struggles. She apologizes, however, and Nick forgives her. She heads to the bathroom in search of Advil and chats amiably with Willa, who has also forgiven her for last night’s bad behavior. (Rocky was also apparently rude to Willa.) Willa finds an old maxi pad and comments on how large it is. Rocky doesn’t want to talk about it, but the pad is a relic of a summer past, when Willa was not yet one and Rocky was pregnant.
The family is at the beach. Rocky observes an elderly woman emerge from the ocean and contemplates the aging process. She feels betrayed by her body because of how perimenopause is wreaking havoc on both her emotions and her physical features.
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