Fleishman Is in Trouble

“Those nights, like the other nights, she was at work, or at dinner with a client, what she called ‘pulling her weight’ when she was being kind, and what she called ‘being your cash cow’ when she wasn’t.” 

This line underscores one of the central tensions in Toby and Rachel’s marriage: Rachel is the primary breadwinner, but Toby would prefer her to be home more often. 

“Toby and Rachel had separated at the very beginning of June, just after school ended, the culmination of an almost yearlong process, or maybe a process that began shortly after their wedding 14 years before.” 

The timeline of Toby and Rachel’s divorce doesn’t exist on a clean, clear continuum, but like everything else, is subject to interpretation, and therefore to confusion and misunderstanding. 

“This gave him peace and hope, that anything he’d missed out on when he married Rachel so young was still there, waiting. That other people had screwed up and were starting over, too.” 

One of the central themes of the novel—and one of its more hopeful notes—involves this idea that there is still plenty of life awaiting Toby and Rachel, despite the disappointment and pain of the marriage’s collapse.