Same As It Ever Was: A Novel

The timeline flashes back to Julia as a child in the second grade, performing in a school play. She was thrilled to see both her mother and her father, Lawrence, in the audience. After the play, her father asked if they wanted to get some ice cream. Her mother offered to cook dinner, but Lawrence said he had to get back to work that afternoon. In the car, Julia was playing a game when she pinched her father and accidentally knocked her mother in the face with her elbow. Her mother’s mood soured. Anita said Julia forgot her line in the play and there was nothing to celebrate so they should just go home.

In the present timeline, Julia and Alma wait to pick Anita up at the airport. Alma wants to know why she has never before met her grandmother. Julia says it’s “kind of fucked” and “complicated” (381), and Alma seems to understand. When Anita arrives at the curbside by the airport, she’s with a man, Marshall Torres. Julia is surprised that her mother didn’t tell her she was bringing someone. Anita sizes up Alma and says she’s “tall” and “pretty,” but when Anita implies that only lesbians drive Subarus like Julia’s, Alma admonishes her.

In the past timeline, Julia tries to plug up her ears to avoid hearing her parents fighting. However, she overhears Anita saying that Lawrence is a bad father. After the fight, her father comes up to her room and reads to her. He tells her he is sorry, says goodbye, and leaves. She never sees him again.

Five weeks later, Julia asks Anita where her father is. Anita, perhaps drunk, tells her the most important lesson to learn is that “it’s easier to just not count on anybody else” (394), but she adds that Lawrence loved Julia. Then, she falls asleep with Julia in her arms.

In the present timeline, it’s the night before the wedding. Anita and Alma sit in the kitchen while Julia cooks dinner, and they catch up. Anita says her husband, Marshall, is a public defender and that she works part-time at a school for the deaf with Marshall’s daughter Lydia. Julia is surprised.

Ben comes home and embraces Anita. He’s happy she decided to come to the wedding. Then, he hugs Julia too.

In the past timeline, Julia and Anita’s lives become more unstable after Lawrence leaves. Anita is indifferent and even cruel to Julia, at one point comparing her to a lamp because she was “easy to pack up and take with you” (404).

In the ninth grade, Julia gets a scholarship to a private school near the University of Chicago. The students there are much wealthier than she is, so she feels out of place. One afternoon, while she is at a friend’s house, a mean girl asks where Julia’s father is. Julia tells her that her father is dead, though she doesn’t know if that is true.

In the present timeline, Sunny’s family and Julia’s family awkwardly mingle at the house. Sunny looks sad because her relationship with her family is strained. Julia is cooking when Sunny’s mother and grandmother talk to her about their disapproval because Ben was Sunny’s teaching assistant at the university and she got pregnant before the wedding. Julia stands up for the couple.

When Julia was 17, her mother began dating a man named Jonathan. He made Anita happy and introduced Julia to bands like Talking Heads. One night, Julia was doing her homework at the kitchen table when her mother noticed a flyer for graduation cap and gown rental. Julia didn’t plan to attend the graduation ceremony, but Anita, hoping to make a good impression on Jonathan, insisted that Julia go. Anita told Julia to get her checkbook from her dresser so that she could write a check for the rental.

In the dresser drawer, Julia found a newspaper clipping: an obituary for her father, Lawrence, who died six years earlier. The obituary indicated that he had another family. Julia was furious with Anita for not telling her the news. Anita was annoyed at Julia’s outburst. Julia went outside, and Jonathan followed to comfort her.

In the present timeline, Julia notices that her mother isn’t drinking at dinner and realizes that Anita and Marshall are both wearing wedding rings: They’re married. Julia interrupts the dinner conversation to ask about it. Marshall says they’ve been married for four years and remarks that this is nothing compared to Mark and Julia’s 26 years of marriage.

In the past timeline, Julia gets a large scholarship from Northwestern University. She plans to tell her mother the good news but, seeing that Anita is in a bad mood that evening, decides against it. Instead, they make fun of a girl with whom Julia works.

After dinner, she goes to a payphone to tell Jonathan about the scholarship. It takes him a moment before he says how proud he is of her. They’ve been sleeping together for two months. Years later, she realizes that he thought she was going to say she was pregnant.

In the present timeline, Anita enters the kitchen while Julia prepares dessert. Julia tells Anita she’s upset that she wasn’t invited to Anita’s wedding to Marshall. Anita jokes that Julia has been drinking too much. When Julia suggests that Anita is being a hypocrite, Anita says she has been sober for eight years. They argue, and Anita says it was Julia’s decision to leave. Julia says Anita should have intervened. Mark comes in and tells them that the others can hear them arguing from the dining room.

In the past timeline, Jonathan picks Julia up from school in his Jeep. They drive to a park. He seems anxious, but they have sex on the ground. After they finish, he tells her that Anita knows about their relationship. Julia feels “subhuman.”

On her way home, Julia thinks about how, after she had a temper tantrum when she was little, her mother left her by the side of the road for a few minutes, and Julia had been terrified. When she walks into the house, Anita confronts her about having sex with Jonathan. Julia tries to explain and apologize, but Anita turns icy and walks away.

The next day, Julia decides to attend Kansas State University instead of Northwestern University (located in the Chicago suburb of Evanston) to be farther away from her mother.

In the present timeline, Sunny’s stepfather and Mark toast Ben and Sunny. Julia thinks about how much she’ll miss Ben even though he won’t be far away. After dinner, Julia takes the dog for a walk. Her mother joins her. Anita apologizes. She says she stayed away before because, after her visit when Julia was pregnant with Alma, Mark called Anita and told her to stay away from the family. Anita says it has “never been easy for us” (451), but she’s glad to be there for the wedding.

After the guests all leave, Julia throws up, having had too much to drink. Mark comforts her and they talk about their recent arguments regarding Francine and the affair. He tells Julia that he loves Francine as a friend and, since Francine encouraged him to stay with Julia after her affair, he felt he owed it to Francine to return the favor and encourage her to return after her split with Brady. Then, Mark explains that he told Anita to stay away because he was angry about how Anita had hurt Julia. He holds Julia and tells her she’s “doing just fine” (457).

The next morning, Julia wakes up at five o’ clock. She sees Marshall outside smoking a cigarette. He tells her that he loves Anita and, by extension, Julia. Marshall tells her that Anita has a close relationship with his daughter Lydia, who also has a fiery personality. Lydia was the one who encouraged Anita to attend the wedding.

Julia recalls that, as child, “it hadn’t all been horrible” (464). Julia and Anita sometimes danced together in the kitchen. At some point, they stopped dancing together, but Julia occasionally still danced in the kitchen. Julia wonders if Anita did the same.

Later that day, Julia goes to the florist to pick up the flowers for the wedding. She gets an extra bouquet of poppies for Helen and then goes to Helen’s house and knocks on the door. The house is under renovation but is otherwise exactly how she remembers it. She goes out into the garden to give Helen the flowers, and they reconnect. The house feels a little more empty now that Helen’s husband, Pete, has died. Helen tells Julia she’s selling the house and moving to a retirement home. Julia says she would like to visit Helen there.

Julia, Mark, and Alma dress for the wedding. Julia is thrilled when Alma lets her French-braid her hair like she used to do when Alma was little. After Alma leaves, Mark comes in and tells her she looks beautiful. They hold each other on the bed before leaving for the church.

At the church, Julia talks to Ben before the wedding. He asks her if she has any advice about marriage, and she says, “[I]f you’re trying, it means you care” (483). Then, Julia and Mark walk Ben down the aisle. Julia cries during the ceremony.

Anita and Marshall leave the dinner afterward early because they’re tired but reassure Julia they’ll be there for breakfast the next morning. Then, Ben asks Julia to dance. They dance together, while Alma dances with Mark. Then, they swap partners, and Julia dances with Mark.

She thinks about this moment of the family dancing together during everything that happens afterward. Mark dies two years later of an aortic aneurism. Helen eventually dies as well. Ben and Sunny have three sons. Alma has a turbulent dating life, travels the world, and does nonprofit work. Julia meets Anita and Marshall’s family, and soon after, Anita develops severe memory loss. Julia misses Mark.