Day

Day delves into different nontraditional forms of love, each reflecting the intricacies and emotional challenges faced by its characters. There is one traditional family in the novel: Dan, Isabel, and their two children. However, Dan and Isabel’s marriage struggles from the opening of the novel, ultimately ending in divorce. Conversely, there are several relationships that utilize the term “love” but are not heteronormative, highlighting the complexities of love. Through these other relationships, Day explores the complicated idea of what love is, what role attraction—whether physical or not—plays in love, and the varying ways that love enriches life.

Dan and Robbie are repeatedly stated as being “in love” with each other. When Robbie describes their relationship, he notes how he and Dan are the “central couple” in their home, “the ones who minister to each other, who are raising children together, who juggle the tasks, who want to know, each to the other, if they’re all right, relatively speaking” (80). As Isabel increasingly distances herself from the family, Dan and Robbie form a de facto partnership, managing the household and children, deepening their emotional bond in a way that transcends typical heteronormative expectations. Additionally, as Isabel refuses to listen to Dan’s music and is adamant that he is wasting his time, Robbie sits and listens to each new song Dan writes, giving him feedback and encouraging him. After Robbie dies, Dan is devastated and uses Robbie’s death to contextualize his experiences with substance use disorder:

[T]ry being here, in this godforsaken place, where nobody seems to care that Robbie’s death tore a hole in you too, where you’re called on to help the others through it [while] you and only you know that you, in your way, have been as much widowed as anyone (263).

In other words, Dan comforts and supports Isabel, who lost her brother, and Violet and Nathan, who lost their uncle, but feels as though he is receiving no support in return—even though he truly loved Robbie, perhaps even more than he loved Isabel.

Through Dan and Robbie, Michael Cunningham expresses the importance of love between people in non-sexual partnerships or relationships. While Dan is married to Isabel, forming a heteronormative relationship where they create a family together, his true feelings lie with Robbie, with whom he had a healthy, fulfilling relationship, even as he considers himself heterosexual. In this way, the text portrays love as transcending traditional categories, showing that deep emotional connections and partnerships can exist outside of conventional romantic or sexual bonds.

Cunningham explores another non-traditional relationship in the form of Chess and Garth. While Chess’s sexual preference is never explicitly stated, she makes it clear that she has no sexual attraction to men. She and Garth have been friends for years, even after they both had a romantic interest in the same woman. Chess decides to have a child with Garth, with the understanding that it would be her child to raise. However, Chess’s feelings become complicated in the novel, as Garth expresses her love for her, and Chess wonders how she feels about him. Although she makes it clear that she “does not love men. She does not love Garth,” she also states that “something keeps shifting inside her, a queasiness that’s not love but is not nothing and maybe, in its way, is not exactly, not entirely, not love” (223). Though Chess is clear about her lack of romantic interest in men, her feelings toward Garth become increasingly ambiguous, suggesting that love need not align with traditional sexual attraction.

Additionally, Cunningham’s diction—the repetition of the word “not”—reflects Chess’s confusions at her feelings. She is not sure how she feels about Garth, and now considers the possibility that it might be something like love. These feelings convey the complexity of what it means to love someone: Chess is hesitant to start a relationship with Garth not only because of her lack of sexual attraction but also because of his failings as a father. Chess thinks later in the text, “she’ll do her best, year after year, to convince Odin, as he grows older, that his father means well […] and that it’s best to refrain from expecting more of him than he’s capable of providing” (261). In other words, Chess may or may not love Garth, and she may have considered a relationship with him, but, ultimately, she recognizes the damage that Garth could potentially cause Odin if he had a larger role in their lives. She puts aside her own feelings and Garth’s desires to do what is best for her child, sticking to her original belief that the best choice is for her to raise Odin on her own. This internal conflict demonstrates that love, while powerful, must also contend with practical realities and personal boundaries. Cunningham suggests that love alone is not enough to overcome obstacles if the conditions for a healthy relationship are not present. Furthermore, the love that Chess chooses is her son rather than a potential romantic partnership, again demonstrating the text’s exploration of love as a complex, multifaceted force.

Chess’s decision—much like Isabel’s choice to move forward with her divorce with Dan—conveys the difficulties of dealing with feelings of love as they impact life. Cunningham dismantles the notion of love as a straightforward solution to life’s problems, instead portraying it as a complex, ambivalent force that complicates personal and familial relationships. Ultimately, Cunningham’s portrayal of love is neither simplistic nor idealized; instead, it is rooted in the messy, imperfect reality of human relationships. Whether in the form of emotional dependency, unfulfilled desires, or the intersection of friendship and attraction, love is a force that shapes the characters’ lives in unexpected, often contradictory ways.