Summary

As the baby grows, the best friend's husband begins leaving daily messages apologizing and begging the best friend to visit "just as a friend" (174). The narrator takes the math student to view an oil slick at the gas station to observe the properties of light: "You could not get such patterns if light didn't struggle internally as well" (175). After another conversation with the shrink about her mother's attempt to run off, the shrink mentions that the narrator only sees bad things in the past, which cannot be the whole story. Snow covers Boston; the narrator buys a face mask and wonders if she could wear it into the chemistry lab and start anew. She does not act on this whim, only quoting the proverb, "My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon" (180).

The math student and the girl in Antarctica...