How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
One day I was living in the large apartment of Lewis and Mariah (without Lewis, of course, for he had gone to live somewhere else all by himself, allowing a decent amount of time to pass before he gave Mariah the surprise of her life: he had fallen out of love with her because he had fallen in love with her best friend, Dinah), and the next day I was not (5.9).
As in other places in the novel, Lucy seems pretty dismissive of Lewis's betrayal of Mariah—here, she even sticks her commentary on it in a parentheses which really ends up downplaying it. Why do you think she refuses to see it as a big deal?
Quote #8
The reality of [Mariah's] situation was now clear to her: she was a woman whose husband had betrayed her. I wanted to say this to her: "Your situation is an everyday thing. Men behave in this way all the time. The ones who do not behave in this way are the exceptions to the rule (5.13).
Your husband cheated on you with your best friend? No biggie. Do you think Lucy's assessment of Mariah's situation as an "everyday thing" would be helpful for Mariah to hear? Or would it be a totally insensitive thing to say?
Quote #9
Not long after that I learned, through my usual habit of eavesdropping on conversations between my mother and her friends, that a woman with whom my father had had a child and who had tried to kill my mother and me through obeah was named Enid (5.22).
Whoa. The fact that an innocent kid like Lucy could've been killed as a consequence of her father's betrayal of this Enid lady suggests that betrayal can potentially have violent and unintended consequences.