Lexi is a sixty-year-old widow whose solitary life is thrown into turmoil when a desperate young woman moves in with her, soon followed by the unexpected arrival of her best friend, who has separated from her husband of forty years.
The Physics of Relationships is a highly readable, intimate story about loss, aging, female friendship, family, and renewal…told with grit and humor.
Lexi is a sixty-year-old widow whose solitary life is thrown into turmoil when a desperate young woman moves in with her, soon followed by the unexpected arrival of her best friend, who has separated from her husband of forty years.
The Physics of Relationships is a highly readable, intimate story about loss, aging, female friendship, family, and renewal…told with grit and humor.
“Mom, do you remember Danielle?”
Tasha always expected me to remember every friend and acquaintance she had met over her thirty-two years, even ones I had never actually met in person. And I always felt that I disappointed her if I couldn’t remember, as if I had failed to perform my motherly duty.
“Danielle ... you mean ... the Danielle ... from school?” I was faking it. Buying time.
“Yeah, we used to hang out in high school. She’s the one whose father died in that weird accident.”
That detail jogged my memory. “Right, right. That was so sad.”
“Yeah. So, anyway, she’s been living in New York making jewelry. Now she’s back in town.”
“Wonderful. Are you going to see her?”
“I did. She’s moving back here. She broke up with her boyfriend. And that was the only thing keeping her in New York. She’s looking for a place to stay ... temporarily ... until she can find something affordable.”
The warning sirens were blaring. First of all, there was nothing affordable in the Bay Area. And second, I knew what was coming next.
“Could she stay with you ... just for a while?”
There was a long silence while I contemplated my answer. I was hardly looking for a roommate at the age of sixty-three. And I knew that “a while” could mean a long time. On the other hand, I didn’t want to appear to be mean and uncaring. Sensing my hesitation, Tasha added, “She’ll pay rent. She just can’t afford that much. And she’s a good cook ... vegan mostly.”
Raising the topic of food preparation only increased my anxiety. How would we handle meals? Would we each buy food separately and make separate meals? I didn’t want the complication. One of the few pleasures of growing old is that life becomes less complicated. That little pleasure would be stolen from me.
I didn’t even know this young woman. How cooperative would she be? Was she messy? Did she like to listen to loud music? Would she want to have boyfriends over and stay up late?
“Please, Mom. She really needs some help. She’s kind of depressed.”
My daughter—this powerful, generous woman whom I love—was asking for a favor. It was hard to refuse. And, since my husband’s death some months ago, I was living alone in a three-bedroom house with plenty of room for a “temporary” guest. I had no excuse. So, I did what I often do in situations like this. I offered a cowardly compromise.
“Okay, Danielle can stay here for a week. But after that she’ll need to find someplace else. I’m serious.” By adding “I’m serious” as an addendum, I was clearly trying to convince myself more than Tasha.
A troubling memory came back to me. As a young girl, ten or eleven years old, Tasha had the habit of bringing home kittens. We let her keep the first one, a black cat whom she cleverly named Purrsia. We forbade her from bringing home any more kittens. She brought home two more. We kept them. What else could we do? They were so cute, and they needed a home. I feared that Danielle would be the new kitten.
Lexi, twice-married, the second time to a man 15 years her senior, with two grown-up children, Brandon and Tasha, is recently widowed —after a long illness— from the love of her life and finds it difficult to adjust to life alone. Her tendency towards kindness, generosity, and her attempts at being on friendly terms with her daughter, make her accept as a non-paying lodger one of her daughter’s school friends, Danielle. And later, the marriage of her Francophile best friend Amy goes into crisis, and she ends up moving in as well. The novel explores Lexi’s day-to-day life, her adoption of a new ersatz family, and how her existence enters a new and inspiring stage. This is an adult coming-of-older-age story, one that celebrates women’s sisterhood, and the power and endurance of creativity.
This is one of those rare novels whose protagonists are not all young, attractive, and fit, and even rarer, most readers would be quite happy to meet them in real life, as they are ‘good people’. It beautifully portrays the inner life, thoughts, reflections, and adventures, of a sixty-year-old widow whose life has changed beyond all recognition with the death of her husband. She had a career (there is hardly any work coming in now) and also volunteered to tutor students, but her main role was that of wife and mother. Although her financial situation is reasonably stable, there is a big hole in her inner life. She has accepted her children’s independent lives (this is not a standard case of empty-nest syndrome), and she is keeping herself busy but something is lacking. As a result of her difficulty in saying ‘no’ to her daughter, she ends up being surrounded by small (or big, depending on how one looks at them) dramas, and those end up teaching her a lot about life, especially hers.
The beauty of this novel, narrated in the first-person by Lexi, is the way the story flows organically, and readers are witnesses to Lexi’s thoughts, reflections, doubts, and hesitations. She is always trying to second guess the desires and motives of others and is used to always putting others’ interests before her own. She has a great sense of humour, is a deep thinker who does not easily share her opinions with others, and describes herself as an observer. Readers see the rest of the characters through her perspective, and that, in turn, makes her easier to understand. The contrast between Lexi and her best friend, Amy, lively, opinionated, direct, and who loves to experiment and try everything (she’s a fabulous character), works well; and Lexi’s relationship with Danielle, her temporary daughter, and the contrast between her and Tasha also help create a deeper picture of the life and the experiences of an older woman in today’s society.
Readers who are looking for stories with older protagonists, are fond of insightful and realistic characters articulate and witty, and are not only looking for a conventional plot full of ‘thrilling’ adventures will enjoy this book. If that wasn’t enough of a recommendation, the ending is an ode to creativity, new beginnings, and the ‘never-too-late’ philosophy of life, (and yes, the title is explained too), and the book is full of quotable sentences and memorable comments and reflections. A couple of examples:
“I don’t know what happens. We get old and something starts flapping around in there,” she explained, gesturing toward her throat. “That`'s pretty much true of our whole body, the flapping part,” I said. (This is from a dialogue between Amy and Lexi)
I had an old car, which was perfectly fine with me. I actually had a certain affinity with my car. It was old and dented, and it had lost its luster. That was a pretty fair description of me.