Summary

Marion ran out of the house feeling overweight and ugly. She had been desperately trying to lose weight, but nothing was working. Though she had not been eating much, when she passed the cookies Judson was decorating, she felt powerless to resist them. Her appearance and her status as minister's wife made her feel invisible. Russ did not desire her, nor did other men. Motherhood made her "featureless" to her children (127). No one in New Prospect or First Reformed "actively disliked her," yet there "was no one she could call a close friend" (127).

She was on her way to her therapy session. No one knew "she was seeing a psychiatrist" (127). When she was young, Marion had been a Catholic. Catholicism had helped her reform. Then, when she met Russ, she "made herself a level-headed Protestant" (128).

Roughly a year ago, Marion had begun...