It would be easier for her to accept my absence for a whole month than to have me show up on the doorstep of what had once been our house, knocking at the door like a stranger on Christmas morning or Boxing Day or Christmas Eve, after calling to make and confirm the arrangements, not to mention the parting that would have to follow.
-- Narrator (The Divorce)

Importance: Kent decides to go on vacation for a month during the Christmas holidays because he does not want to go through the stress of arranging times to see his daughter. He also does not want his daughter to go through this stress. He fears his daughter will come to see him as a visitor or a stranger instead of her father.

He wasn’t riding his bicycle but wheeling it; he had probably just got off and stepped up onto the pavement. The water doused him...
-- Narrator (The Divorce)