Simon

Simon is Lee’s husband, a man whose marriage offers her family material support but also exposes the distance between her life and his. Lee describes him as depressed and repeatedly unfaithful, while Henry English senses that Simon belongs to a social world he cannot understand. Simon’s part in the story is chiefly conveyed through the judgments, compromises, and private reflections of the people around him; the marriage is not presented as a settled refuge so much as a bond Lee is still trying to interpret.

Identity and Background

Lee identifies Simon as someone from school, and they marry in a quick civil ceremony rather than a church wedding. She later tells Christy that they went to a justice of the peace. The marriage was impulsive enough that Henry had never met his new son-in-law; Lee had repeatedly made excuses, and Simon had not objected. Henry nevertheless understood that the excuses concealed a reason, and accepted them without pressing her.

Simon comes from a wealthy family based in Darien, Connecticut. He has access to a family house in Provence, and Lee imagines his parents entertaining guests in a comfortable setting far removed from the burdens she associates with home. His family’s resources also have practical significance: after Lee marries him, they feel more comfortable helping care for Henry. The assistance is not merely an abstraction to Lee, who expects to need money for home care and repairs, but it also makes her marriage part of the family’s arrangements for coping with Henry’s needs.

Marriage and Unequal Expectations

Lee marries Simon partly in response to his infidelity. She believes she did it to show that she forgave him, though she is unsure whether that was a sufficient reason to marry. She knows of three other women and suspects there may have been more. Her reflections do not present forgiveness as a completed process: Simon can be attentive to her, yet his betrayal remains part of how she understands the marriage.

The marriage’s public and private meanings do not entirely match. Lee is embarrassed by her engagement ring and says it did not fit correctly; she is also reluctant to explain what she does with her time. When asked, she says she has been applying to schools again and helping her mother-in-law with a business. These small evasions show how difficult it is for her to describe a life in which marriage has connected her to greater financial security without making her feel fully at home in that security.

Lee also thinks of her marriage as a possible route away from hardship, then resists that interpretation. She does not want to take Simon’s family’s money, and the prospect of becoming a blue-collar woman who marries into wealth makes her uncomfortable. She intends to continue toward law school and imagines working in public service rather than simply adopting the opportunities Simon’s family can provide. Her plans place the marriage between two competing possibilities: practical assistance and a life that might appear to have been chosen for her.

Strain and Dependence

Lee sees Simon as both genuinely troubled and accustomed to helplessness. During her absence in Buell, he is staying with his parents in Darien. Though New York is only about an hour away by train and he has many friends there, he does not feel able to leave the house. Lee recognizes this as depression, but also suspects that his passivity has become a habit. She worries that if his money disappeared, he might not manage; she extends the concern to some of her wealthy friends, while acknowledging that many work hard.

Her view is conflicted rather than simply dismissive. Simon has cheated on her, and she sometimes feels that he barely acknowledges her, yet she still loves him and relies on him as an emotional point of reference. After becoming intimate with Billy Poe, Lee is unsettled by what she has done and leaves the car to call Simon. She describes him to herself as her anchor. That choice reveals the continuing force of their bond, but not a resolution: she is seeking stability at a moment when her feelings for Billy and her obligations to Simon pull in different directions.

Family and Social Position

Simon’s wealth becomes especially consequential when Lee learns that Billy Poe is implicated in a killing involving Isaac English. She considers helping Billy obtain a lawyer, but understands that securing a strong defense for him could harm Isaac. The shared checkbook bears her and Simon’s names, and she fears that Simon or his father might discover a payment made for her former boyfriend, now accused of killing someone. Her hesitation arises from the collision of loyalty, family protection, and the financial arrangements of her marriage—not simply from a lack of concern for Billy.

Simon nevertheless offers help. When Lee tells him she may need to use the checkbook, he tells her to do so and says he can ask his father to find someone if the trouble is serious. Lee asks him not to involve his father. His offer gives her a practical option while also making visible the family resources on which the marriage could draw. Henry later sees Simon’s name beside Lee’s on the checkbook at a meeting with a lawyer, a reminder that Lee’s new household is already involved in the crisis surrounding Isaac and Billy.

Narrative Role

Simon is characterized less through direct action than through the contrast between the security available to him and the economic and emotional demands Lee carries from Buell. Henry is uneasy about Simon, whom he has never met and cannot imagine understanding; Lee, for her part, recognizes Simon’s privilege and weaknesses without being able to reduce her feelings to either. Their marriage therefore remains unresolved in meaning. It can provide assistance to Henry, companionship to Lee, and an escape from some forms of hardship, while also requiring Lee to confront infidelity, dependence, and the risk of living according to expectations she does not share.