Barb’s Reviews > Great Circle > Status Update

It was a simple thing, in the end, to begin.
Marian Graves

After Caleb leaves, Marian is lonely for the first time since coming to Alaska. The uninhabited ring of space she's cultivated around herself begins to seem less like a protective barrier than scorched earth.

The responsibility of owning so many fine and delicate positions, so Mary sparkling bits and bobs that served no real purpose but must not be forgotten or lost or broken, worked on her like a kind of drag, slowing her. She was unused to shoes that must not be gotten wet and gossamer fabrics that snagged or stretched unless she remembered to move cautiously at all times.

She sighed and patted his forearm. "You've had to take care of each other more than most children and grow up quickly. It must have been very hard sometimes.
When he was safely in the attic, he sat on the floor and wept. He had not known how badly he had wanted someone to say exactly that.

In her experience, proximity to other humans did not actually diminish solitude.