Washington State

Washington State enters the narrative as the distant setting of Emily’s work, not as a described landscape. Its importance lies in the separation it creates: while the narrator is home on leave, Emily is away pursuing a job she says cannot wait, and later, even after she has left the state, renewed contact does little to restore their closeness.

Emily’s Work and the Narrator’s Leave

During a two-week mid-tour leave, the narrator returns home expecting to see Emily but finds that she cannot stay long in Cleveland. She has found a job somewhere in Washington State, connected in some way with nature, and says she cannot let the opportunity pass. The work is left unspecified; what matters to the narrator is that it takes her away during his brief return.

He considers other women who would have slept with him, but does not act on that possibility because he is technically married to Emily, even though he is supposed to keep the marriage secret. Her absence and his concealed marital status leave him suspended between fidelity and resentment. At the end of leave, he goes back to his unit.

Leaving the State, Renewing Contact

Later, Emily leaves Washington State and returns to Elba, where she is attending college. The change makes her reachable again: the narrator calls whenever he can. Yet their conversations offer little to say, and the possibility of his eventual return is not necessarily welcome to her. He recognizes this but refuses to face it directly, holding to the reassurance that their relationship is all right.

He pays her fall-term tuition after she asks for the money and takes the request as evidence that things between them are fine. Washington State therefore marks a temporary stage in their separation, but leaving it does not repair the relationship. The narrative links geography to a sharper emotional distance: renewed access to Emily brings neither substantial conversation nor confidence that she wants him home.