No Matter What

Roz, a recipe creator and food coordinator at Harvest NYC, a food rescue organization, narrates the discovery that her husband, Vin, an electrician, appears to be moving out. She finds a lease for a new apartment on the kitchen counter, pinned under a can of diced tomatoes, with a move-in date of August 15. Their marriage has been deteriorating in stages: Vin first moved to the far side of the bed, then to the guest room after his younger brother Raffi moved out, and now, it seems, to an apartment of his own. When Vin comes home and sees that Roz has posted the lease on the fridge, he says nothing and walks back out.

Roughly a year earlier, Roz, Vin, and Raffi were in a café when a truck crashed through the front window. Vin threw himself over Roz, sustaining a 14-inch laceration down his back. Roz suffered a sprained shoulder and a laceration on her collarbone, and Raffi's arm was shattered; he also had a severe concussion. As Roz cared for both men in the months that followed, she and Vin stopped communicating, lost their intimacy, and fell into separate rhythms centered on Raffi's recovery. When Raffi finally moved out, they had nothing left between them.

Interspersed throughout the novel are passages narrated in a different voice, later revealed to be Vin speaking at a storytelling open mic. These sections describe falling in love with Roz and their early courtship, offering a window into feelings he cannot express to her directly.

After picking up a framed portrait from St. Michel, her eccentric custom framer, Roz is caught in a rainstorm and ends up at 954 East 12th Street, the address on Vin's lease. Esther, registrar for a figure drawing class in the building, pulls Roz inside. Daniel, the instructor, invites her to stay. Roz sits down with a colored pencil, and Daniel praises her instinctive approach, noting that she constructs the model as an idea rather than copying a likeness.

Roz's best friend is Raffi, the connection through which she and Vin met. She and Vin agree to keep the separation secret from him. When Raffi takes Roz to a paint-and-sip class, she discovers a quiet calm in drawing, and he encourages her to return to Daniel's class.

Vin tells Roz he has located the fourth person injured in the café accident and wants to contact him, hoping for closure. Roz interprets this as proof he wants to leave. She returns to the drawing class, where she meets Lauro, a charismatic and flirtatious artist; Em, a quiet, intensely talented woman; and model Pavel, among other regulars. When Pavel strips nude, Roz's first drawing accidentally resembles genitalia. Daniel uses the moment to lecture on the organic rhythms of the human body, arguing that an honest, imperfect drawing is always superior to a recognizable but soulless symbol like a stick figure.

As weeks pass, Roz deepens her involvement in the class while she and Vin continue their strained coexistence, punctuated by a near-kiss in a bar bathroom and a slow dance at Raffi's housewarming party. A turning point comes when Roz challenges Vin, listing his contradictions: texting about groceries but signing a lease, almost sleeping with her but retreating to the guest room. When Vin holds up his wedding ring, Roz invokes Daniel's lesson that a recognizable symbol is not the same as an honest one. Vin manages to say that she is his wife, they are having a tough time, but "that doesn't mean . . . I won't do for you" (119). He adds that the lease does not start until August 15 and tells her he is still here.

Roz's growth as an artist accelerates, galvanized by Daniel's lecture on Michelangelo's command: "Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio. Draw, and don't waste time" (111). Vin, alarmed by Roz's plan to find figure models online, offers to pose for her. Their private sessions are intensely intimate, with Vin watching Roz as she studies his body. When Daniel later examines these drawings, he observes that Vin's figure extends past the edges of the page, suggesting the story is not over and evoking infinity. Alone afterward, Roz confronts what her drawings reveal: she still loves Vin desperately.

The crisis peaks when Roz discovers moving boxes in Vin's room. He reveals the boxes are for the last of Raffi's belongings, then makes the critical disclosure: he never signed the lease. Every time Roz referenced his signing it, he tried to correct her, but she never heard the distinction. The full story emerges: When Vin picked up the portrait from St. Michel, he was disturbed by the family photo Roz had chosen, in which Raffi stood between them. He planned a surprise trip to Montauk with a newly framed photo from the night they first met, showing him gazing at Roz with undisguised tenderness. The unsigned lease was meant as an alternative, offering her space if she wanted it. But Raffi found the lease and mistook it for an apartment rented for him, and by the time Vin got home, Roz had already posted it on the fridge. That same night, Vin walked to a therapist's office and has been in weekly sessions ever since.

They reconcile, crying and holding each other. They visit Vin's mother, Ramona, where Vin shaves his beard and he and Roz kiss for the first time in over a year, then make love. Raffi breaks down that night, revealing he has known about their problems and blamed himself for staying too long after the accident. Roz reassures him and challenges him to stop wishing he were different.

Back in New York, Roz and Vin confront their post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) together. When Vin lies on top of Roz in bed, she flashes back to his motionless weight during the accident and shoves him off. He explains that his therapist has taught him to name triggers aloud, and they develop shared language for their trauma, comparing themselves to two porcupines who must be careful when they hug.

Em reveals that Vin has been attending a storytelling open mic at a bar called Sooth, where he tells stories about Roz, a practice assigned by his therapist, Dr. Elias Colewood. Roz rushes to the bar and, hidden in the crowd with Raffi, watches Vin tell the story of the accident publicly for the first time, concluding: "At least I know that I've got something to die for" (291). All three embrace afterward, and Vin sobs with the release.

Vin meets Ethan, the fourth person from the accident, and returns reassured. Roz begins therapy and starts a cookbook project combining recipes with hand-drawn food illustrations. In a late-night conversation, she articulates the anger she has carried all year: she is furious at Vin for getting hurt while saving her, because his arms, once the safest place in the world, became terrifying when the accident happened while he was holding her.

Roz places a pearl ring on her left hand, set from Aunt Therese's pearls, and calls it a marriage ring rather than a wedding ring. She asks Vin if he will stay married to her for the rest of their lives, and he answers: "I will" (301). Roz draws the three of them older, sitting in a café, living normal lives, and Vin hangs the drawing beside his framed photo from the night they met. The novel closes with Roz reflecting that you cannot delete a chapter and get the same ending. She wants every tangle and will draw right off the edge of the page: "Him and me, we're shooting for infinity" (308).