Daniel feels nearly complete in life. Judy is, when not nagging him about what he should be doing in the family routine, a capable housewife and mother.

For other things he has Michelle.

When he was six he wanted to be just like his father, walking in the door with a briefcase he'd set down in the den for later work. He'd remove his jacket but not his tie when sitting down to dinner. A glass of wine glowed ruby by his plate. The children quietly answered questions directed to them, and his wife wore an apron and her lips matched the glint in the glass of red wine.

Life was almost like that, updated to ignore the missing apron, ruby-lipped wife at the table.

His father, he'd found out, had his secretary Mona. That's why Daniel has Michelle.