Leaving

 "Leaving" is the story of Sarah, who wonders if she can "start over" in her sixties. She becomes involved with a man from her past--a guy she dated in college. He is married, with a daughter, but maybe this fact isn't insurmountable?

Sarah tries to stay patient. Her covert boyfriend, Warren, has issues with his "heir apparent." If Warren leaves his marriage, his adult daughter, Kat, will sever all ties. Warren will have no contact with (potential) grandkids, no access to graduations, weddings. Sarah finds Kat exasperating--but a part of her also respects Kat. She sees that Kat is defending her mother. Maybe a four-decade bond shouldn't be easily dissoluble.

As Sarah "half-lobbies" for a change in the status quo, she considers her relationship with her own child. When kids are little, they depend on you. But if you're in your sixties, you may start to think about the moment when you will depend on your kids. Sarah's daughter, Meg, has her own life, and this is hard to tolerate. Meg's husband quietly disagrees with everything Sarah says (while nodding, as if to disguise the disagreement). If Sarah says, "Curling seems like such a silly sport; look, the crew isn't even cleaning the ice" .....then the son-in-law will nod and say, "They're probably just going slowly so they don't miss anything...." Sarah thinks she is competing with her son-in-law for Meg's attention--and this is a demeaning realization.

I can't say that the book is tightly plotted; there is a lengthy hospital passage that has almost nothing to do with the Sarah/Warren affair, and it seems to have wandered in from a different novel. But I liked spending time in Sarah's head. As a grandmother, she struggles with bath time, and she wonders (silently) how it can be that there aren't more documented cases of child abuse. When she takes one child to school, she has to pretend to feel something other than intense pain; a prim little girl kisses her on the cheek, and she thinks, "SHOW OFF...." In another memorable passage, she argues with a nurse about whether beds are available for family members, in the ICU. The nurse makes an error, which seems minor--but it tells Sarah just how dire her situation is. She realizes she is maybe just a few minutes away from a major loss--and that she isn't supposed to know this. Then she must continue with the fiction of being stoic, being "OK."

The critic Amity Gaige compared this novel to Chekhov's "The Lady With the Dog"--specifically, Chekhov's interest in a hidden life, a secret current that runs alongside all of your public interactions. That's what I enjoyed. Roxana Robinson pays attention to the things we think, but do not say. So--pretty often--her observations are thrilling.