The mother, having concluded that her husband is to blame for upturning the lounge furniture, immediately takes up a defensive position and seems to feel she has to justify her anger. In this passage, she’s silently arguing with her husband, which in itself seems to echo the secrecy and lack of communication at the heart of their relationship. The mother isn’t even able to communicate her frustrations to her husband, and in private, with the help of her imagination, they grow perhaps even more urgent and powerful.
The mother’s attitude, exaggerated by the lively punctuation of exclamation points and question…