All Fours
Chapter 21
by July;, MirandaThe chapter opens with the narrator caring for their child while Harris announces a brunch to celebrate Caro’s new single. The narrator questions Harris’s priorities, wondering if this event hints at his affair with Caro or is merely a public display. Their strained relationship is evident as Harris expresses frustration, wishing for a partner who genuinely wants to be present. The narrator reflects on their own emotional distance, imagining a more domestic, content version of herself that Harris might prefer, while observing their child’s regression into bed-wetting, a sign of underlying stress in the household.
Later, during Harris’s overnight absence, the narrator angrily masturbates to thoughts of him with Caro, then reaches out to Jordi for support. Jordi shares her own experience of sleeping in her studio, framing it as a liberating trend. Their conversation shifts to the narrator’s crumbling marriage, with Jordi suggesting a “special place” for reconciliation. The narrator mentions their shared saluting ritual, a gesture of trust, but admits they lack deeper emotional connection. The chapter highlights the narrator’s growing isolation and the absurdity of their attempts to rationalize Harris’s behavior, such as his absence from Parent Night due to work with a “cellist from Japan.”
The narrative then transitions to a poignant moment at Parent Night, where the narrator comforts their child, Sam, who dislikes their own artwork. The narrator texts the drawing to their father, an amateur geologist, sparking an unexpected conversation about the narrator’s mother. The father reveals that the mother had temporarily left during her menopause, a detail the narrator had forgotten or repressed. This revelation adds another layer to the narrator’s sense of instability, drawing parallels between their mother’s past actions and their own current marital struggles.
The chapter closes with the narrator recalling their mother’s brief independence in a small studio, a memory overshadowed by her eventual return due to health concerns. This reflection on familial patterns of upheaval and reconciliation mirrors the narrator’s own wavering between wanting to salvage their marriage and desiring escape. The chapter underscores themes of emotional disconnection, the search for identity outside relationships, and the cyclical nature of personal and generational trauma.
FAQs
1. How does the narrator’s interaction with Harris about the brunch reveal the tension in their relationship?
Answer:
The brunch discussion highlights growing marital tension through subtle but significant cues. When Harris announces the event to celebrate Caro’s single, the narrator’s internal monologue (“This was where his focus was?”) reveals her disbelief at his priorities during their strained relationship. Her offer to help set up then leave shows both avoidance and passive-aggression, while Harris’s whispered response (“I’d like to be with a person who actually wants to be here”) demonstrates his emotional withdrawal. Their communication has degraded to forehead-directed statements and earbud-wearing retreats, with the narrator even imagining Harris preferring a hypothetical “sleepy, smiling” alternative partner.2. Analyze how the motif of “saluting” functions symbolically in the chapter.
Answer:
The saluting ritual serves as both a symbol of their original connection and a barometer for their current disconnect. When explaining it to Jordi, the narrator recalls their first meeting’s magical quality (“Oh, there you are”), showing how it represented weaponless trust historically. However, the failed plan to salute at Parent Night (due to Harris’s absence) mirrors their emotional distance. Jordi’s interpretation of salutes as ancient trust gestures ironically underscores what’s now missing - their relationship has become weaponized with suspicion (Caro rumors), unspoken resentments, and the narrator’s angry sexual fantasies about Harris’s potential infidelity.3. What does the narrator’s conversation with her father reveal about intergenerational patterns of marital crisis?
Answer:
The father’s revelation about Elaine’s menopause-era separation exposes cyclical family trauma. His emphatic correction (“She moved out! You know that”) suggests the narrator has repressed this memory, just as she’s currently replicating her mother’s pattern of temporary escapes (her studio nights). The canned soup detail symbolizes both women’s quest for simplicity during upheaval. Importantly, the arrhythmia diagnosis that reunited her parents parallels the narrator’s hope that some external factor (like Parent Night) might restore her marriage, while simultaneously fearing they’re permanently “reshaping the calendar” into disconnected Tuesdays.4. How does the chapter use contrasting imagery to portray the narrator’s internal conflict?
Answer:
Vivid contrasts highlight her psychological turmoil: She tenderly brushes Sam’s hair while harboring infidelity suspicions; masturbates angrily to Harris’s imagined affair after lovingly discussing their child’s artwork; envisions herself both as a “toothless, ranting woman” abandoning family for pleasure and as a responsible parent preserving Sam’s basalt drawing. The heater vent’s warmth versus “pee sheets” regression mirrors how domestic comfort coexists with dysfunction. Even Jordi’s “bold” exhilaration versus the narrator’s self-perceived “tawdry” joy creates tension between self-actualization and guilt.5. What significance does the “every day is Tuesday” concept hold in the narrator’s emotional journey?
Answer:
This phrase encapsulates her existential crisis about marital stagnation. Initially representing liberation (Jordi’s “reshaping the calendar” enthusiasm), it later terrifies her as a potential “new life” of endless dissociation. The Tuesday metaphor reflects how workweek structures - Harris’s overnights, her studio Thursdays - have replaced marital intimacy with scheduled apartness. Her sudden inability to remember why this seemed important (“something a crazy person would say”) shows awareness that deconstructing time hasn’t solved deeper issues. The concept ultimately questions whether their relationship can escape this flattened emotional landscape.
Quotes
1. “I’d like to be with a person who actually wants to be here,” he whispered. Not to me but to himself or the gods.
This moment captures the growing emotional distance between the narrator and Harris, revealing his unspoken frustration with their relationship dynamic. The private whisper underscores the breakdown in communication.
2. “We’re reshaping the calendar. The bookmark worked. Every day is Tuesday.”
Jordi’s observation reflects the narrator’s attempt to redefine time and routine as a way to cope with marital dissatisfaction. The phrase highlights how small rebellions (like sleeping apart) can fundamentally alter one’s perception of life.
3. “Salutes began as gestures of trust to show you weren’t holding a weapon,” she said. “So that’s a good start.”
This exchange about the couple’s saluting ritual becomes a poignant metaphor for their relationship - a symbolic gesture of trust that now feels hollow amid their growing suspicions and emotional armoring.
4. “She moved out! You know that… It was right after her surgery; a direct result of her sudden menopause.”
The revelation about the narrator’s mother’s temporary departure mirrors the narrator’s current marital crisis, suggesting generational patterns of women seeking space during hormonal transitions. This adds historical context to the narrator’s behavior.