Chapter 9 Summary

Laura Brown's cake has not turned out as intended; it looks home baked and amateurish. She fixates on the crumbs in the icing and the lopsided 'n' in 'Dan.' She reminds herself that it's just a cake and that her husband will love her regardless. She steels her mind to performing her other wifely tasks for the day: cleaning the house, preparing dinner, and wrapping the presents she's bought for her husband. She knows, but cannot accept, that he will love her and her gifts unconditionally. She wishes she could be the person she's pretending to be, but she feels strange and pathetic; she feels tolerated, not loved. Her thoughts touch on Virginia Woolf putting a stone in her own coat pocket and drowning herself in the river. Laura banishes the thought.

Just then, Laura hears a knock on her door. It...