The novel’s narrator and protagonist, Rocky is a complex, round character of great emotional depth. She introduces herself initially through the framework of family, and her role as a wife and mother is one of the most important aspects of her characterization. She has always been an emotionally hands-on parent who is deeply invested in her children’s happiness, and she struggles to let this aspect of parenting go as her children enter adulthood and no longer require the same level of attention and care from her. She wrestles with these changes and notes sadly, “It’s new, this empty nest” (25). Rocky struggles to redefine herself now that her children are grown, and that task is a key part of her identity in midlife.

Nevertheless, the unresolved grief that Rocky feels about her two failed pregnancies (one pregnancy loss and one abortion) impacts her ability to recalibrate her familial relationships as everyone ages and enters new life stages. She’s consumed by unprocessed melancholy over these events even decades later. Memories of the two pregnancies dominate many of her self-reflective inner monologues, and although Rocky is adept at self-reflection, she’s also mired in emotional pain that she hasn’t been able to move beyond.