“That winter they began dating, so long ago, Jack had spent every night in her small apartment, sleeping with her in her tiny twin bed. They’d wake in the morning sore from holding each other so tightly.

Jack thought about that winter, how for months they were separated by the distance of an alley. All they wanted back then was to eliminate the space between them. And now here they were, twenty years later, putting it back.”

The closeness that Jack and Elizabeth once shared is contrasted with how emotionally distant Jack feels from her in the present. Ironically, they were content with less when they were young and did not need material possessions or status; this changes as they age, and Jack is saddened by it. In a sense, he is faced with the task of getting Elizabeth to fall in love with him all over again, as he was when he initially watched her across the alley during college.

“The story they’d always told themselves in their twenties was that suburban life was stifling and oppressive, but that’s not how it felt to her now. What it felt like now was liberation.”

Elizabeth is surprised to discover that what she believed to be true when she was younger turns out not to be true. She desires the mainstream life that she initially criticized as being “stifling and oppressive.” Whether this is truly what she wants or if the solution to her unhappiness lies elsewhere remains to be seen as the novel unfolds and her character undergoes growth and change.

“It was really discouraging that [Jack’s] relationship’s total cumulative score hovered in the mid-fifties, mostly dragged down by two things: first, his very low Need Fulfillment count, as he had not recorded meeting any of Elizabeth’s specific needs for at least a month now—and not because he wasn’t trying, but because she didn’t seem to have them. Needs. She could go for weeks without expressing a single desire, a single difficulty he could maybe help her with. Years ago he had fallen in love with exactly this quality—her independence, her poise and self-sufficiency—but now, more often than not, it made him feel peripheral, like he was just sitting around wondering: Do you need me yet? Do you need me ever?”

Jack is fearful that Elizabeth has grown unhappy in their marriage, partly because he does not feel that she has any use for him. He is unsure why this is or how to fix it. Elizabeth’s avoidance of expressing needs, which Jack refers to here, greatly contrasts Jack’s mother, who, it will later be revealed, was highly dependent on Jack to appease her foul moods.