She's Come Undone

Dolores and Dante start dating, drifting between their two apartments. Dolores takes pleasure in ironing for Dante and in the attention he gives her. She takes up a job at a local grocer, smokes less and less, learns to drive, and finds herself immersed in a healthy sex life. Through all this, Dolores begins to see truth in the idea of God again and wonders if her mother watches down on her. She feels like she is all of the parts of herself but healed from the damage and pain they once brought. After making love to Dante, Dolores often stays awake through the night, worrying about losing him.

Dolores writes a letter to her grandma, reaching out for the first time in years with a tone of love and forgiveness. She expresses her hopes to know more about her grandma’s life, thanks her grandma for everything she did for her, and tells her of her newfound love and happiness in Dante. Dolores ends with a request to come visit with Dante for Christmas. She never hears back and eventually calls her grandmother to find out if she received the letter. Dolores’s grandmother reacts in a conflicting manner, expressing her love for Dolores while simultaneously acting defensive and short-tempered when Dolores asks about her past.

When Dante comes home one night irritable and frustrated with recent feedback from the principal at his school, Dolores feels frightened and estranged from him and spends the next two nights alone. When she returns, she finds his love-making is rougher and less sensitive. He seems to return to normal soon, though, and invites Dolores to attend his school’s formal. She goes to buy a dress, and while trying it on, finally feels beautiful. At the same time, she intuitively realizes that she is pregnant. The formal proves a strange experience, as Dante leaves Dolores alone with some other staff, who tell her about his past girlfriend—supposedly Dolores’s opposite. When Dolores tells Dante that she’s pregnant that night, he asks her about birth control, which she had been lying about taking. He insists on an abortion, which makes Dolores cry. Dante starts creating excuses, talking about responsibility and losing oneself to parenthood. After awkward sex, Dante leaves and doesn’t come back for a week. When he does return, he gives Dolores a love poem, but she notices that there is no mention of a child in it. She asks Dante about it, and he shakes his head.

Dolores goes to an abortion clinic and finds out about the process, along with how far along her pregnancy is. She is nine weeks along and names the fetus Vita Marie, feeling certain that it’s a girl. She argues with Dante some more about other options, hoping he will come around, but he maintains his position. Not wanting to lose Dante, Dolores books the appointment. That night, she has a dream that she delivered a baby, but the baby soon turned into a candy that Dante encourages her to eat. When she wakes up, she decides that she cannot risk forfeiting this new life for the sake of a child she doesn’t know yet. Just after Christmas, Dolores goes in for the abortion, all the while picturing herself protesting but lying still and feeling nothing, thinking about the whale. When she sees Dante, she feels hatred toward him. She questions his view of her and whether he needs her for anything other than to clean his house and have sex. Dante suggests getting married (as a distraction) and Dolores agrees, but her attraction to him diminishes and she feels reminded of her abortion when they have sex.

Two days before Dante and Dolores’s wedding, Dolores’s grandma arrives, and Dolores wonders if her grandmother would forgive her for having an abortion. They share an important conversation in which they express their mutual sadness over Bernice’s absence and their disdain for the way she became involved with Jack, who was married and later became Dolores’s predator. Dolores asks her grandmother for affirmation that keeping secrets from Dante, including about the hospital and what happened with Jack, is okay, and her grandmother confirms that she should keep the past where it lay. Dolores’s grandmother also gifts her a locket and $2,000 (about $10,000 in 2023 dollars).

In 1978, Dolores and Dante visit a couple that used to live near them but who recently moved into a new house in the countryside. Seeing them together, with a daughter and a new home, makes Dolores want that for herself. No matter how many times she expresses this to Dante, he puts down the idea. Still, Dolores tells herself that he can change and starts saving for a house without telling him, starting with the money from her grandmother. After four months of disciplined saving and working extra hard, Dolores’s efforts are recognized at work, and she is given a promotion with the prospect of more to come. Dolores receives a box of candles from Grandma that remind her of her childhood and writes back assuring she will visit soon, noting her promotion and how she remembers the early days when her parents still seemed happy together. When Dolores has almost $5,000 saved, she tells Dante, who predictably dismisses the idea of buying a house. He also downplays Dolores’s promotion and sarcastically insults her. The next day, he wakes her up and manipulates her into having sex. Dolores thinks of her father and how he treated her mother and tells herself that Dante could never be that way.

When Dolores comes home from work a few days later, she finds Dante in the driveway working on a new green van. He happily explains that he bought it and plans to take Dolores across the country on a belated honeymoon. Angry and betrayed, Dolores demands to know why he did such a thing without asking her and discovers that Dante spent all but $600 of her savings. She writes to her grandmother in a blatantly fake tone, noting her excitement at the prospect of taking a trip with Dante. While preparing the van for the trip, Dante makes a mistake and kicks the side, denting it. Dolores pays for the repairs, along with a new journal and several other things for Dante. Before leaving, Dante manipulates Dolores into having anal sex, which she winces through and bleeds from the next morning. She continues to tell herself that her husband is not like the men of her past.

On their road trip, Dolores forces herself to be grateful and put on a happy face. Dante seems to be doing the same, faking his happiness for photographs. While in the shower one day, Dolores has a clear vision of Vita Marie—her hair, her face, her silly antics. She feels grateful for having even one moment, and wonders who sent her this “miracle.” When they return home, Dolores thanks Dante for the trip, but he seems preoccupied and leaves almost immediately, not returning until later that night.

Just before school starts in the fall, Dante admits he was fired in June after being accused of taking one of his students out of town and molesting her. He starts to cry and promises it isn’t true, and Dolores wants to believe him. She starts thinking about how much money they spent on their trip and questions Dante’s choices, as well as why he kept the secret so long. He replies by swearing at and insulting her. Dolores writes to her grandmother, telling her that she and Dante are happy, that he took a leave of absence, and refrains from mentioning any of their problems. She continues putting off visiting, making the excuse of being too busy. Dante decides to take time away from looking for a job and becomes isolated and overweight, his attitude worsening by the day. Dolores sees herself in his current state, and when she comments on his weight, he refuses to speak to her for a week.

On New Year’s Day, Dante is reminded by a friend about why he was fired from work. That night, filled with rage and humiliation, he hits Dolores. She immediately hits him back, telling him never to do that again. Suddenly, she realizes he is just like her father after all. Some weeks later, Dolores and Dante have sex, and Dolores warns him to stop as she hasn’t taken birth control lately. A few days afterward, Dolores comes home from work and finds Dante with the same girl he was accused of molesting, both of them half-naked on the couch. Dolores screams at Dante to leave. A week later, Dolores finds out that her grandmother died and calls Dante for support.

Dante drives to Dolores and tries to comfort her in a way that makes him seem sympathetic and sorry for his actions, but on the way to the funeral home, tries to talk them away while simultaneously minimizing Dolores’s guilt for not visiting her grandmother as much as she could have. Dolores looks at her grandmother lying in a casket and feels as if she both is and isn’t looking at the person she knew. She and Dante drive to Grandma’s house next and find it half-empty, implying that she knew she was going to die. Dante starts making moves that Dolores knows the intention behind, and she warns him that she isn’t interested in sex. Dolores sees her mother’s room, also empty, and then her own, just as she left it. She understands now that her mother pressured her to attend college so she could escape the isolation and anger of the familial pattern. Dante suggests having a fresh start in the house, but Dolores can’t see that future anymore and no longer trusts Dante or the emotions he pretends to have.

At her grandmother’s funeral, Dolores runs into Mr. Pucci and is overjoyed to see him. They reminisce, and Dolores apologizes for her brash behavior in the past. Mr. Pucci tells her he will never forget her. The attendees gather at Grandma’s house afterward, and Dante disappears to write poetry. He comes downstairs hours later to tell Dolores, who is catching up with Roberta, that he masturbated upstairs, leading to his most recent inspiration.

On the drive home from the funeral, Dante and Dolores stop at a Burger King. There, Dolores is overcome with anger, frustration, and inspiration to be herself. She tells Dante everything about her past, including going to a hospital, being raped as a teenager, and stealing his letters while pretending to be Kippy. She also tells Dante that he raped the high school girl he claimed to be dating and accuses him of using her. Dante becomes more and more enraged by the minute, telling Dolores she betrayed him, and eventually storms out.