Martha is 40 and finally married to Patrick, a man who’s been secretly in love with her ever since teenagerhood. She now loves him back, but seems unable to be happy or even, on occasion, very nice to him. Is it simply, as she’s always felt, that she finds it “harder to be alive than most people”? Or is there some more devastating explanation – or diagnosis – which has been evading her all this time? Daringly, Mason makes a choice not to name it, using instead a series of dashes whenever it comes up.

Source: The Guardian May 31, 2021 06:00 UTC