Separating

It surprised me that Richard was the more sensitive one throughout the whole story. He tried not to cry while he fixed a lock on a door: “…clumsily hammered and chiseled, each blow a kind of sob in Richard’s ears.” He did cry at the supper table: “The tears would not stop leaking through, they came not through a hole that could be plugged but through a permeable spot in the membrane, steadily, purely, endlessly, fruitfully.” Joan seemed really unemotional the entire time.

My first thought was that Richard must not want to go through with the separation because of how emotional he was and the way he had such a hard time telling his children, especially when he kept putting off telling his second son.  Then I started second guessing myself. When he was talking to John he said “We’ll think about getting you transferred. Life’s too short to be miserable.” Why would he say that when he himself seems to be miserable? Then when he’s bringing Richard Jr. home we find out that there’s another woman in Richard’s life. “The home of the woman Richard hoped to marry stood across the green.” Perhaps Richard was having an affair and that is the reason he is so emotional, because he feels such guilt. This statement could be supported when Richard said to Joan in their bedroom, “they never questioned the reasons we gave. No thought of a third person. Not even Judith.” They must have been surprised/relieved that the children didn’t figure it out.