"Through the material of his coat he felt the bundle for her letters. I'll wait for you. Come back. The words were not meaningless, but they didn't touch him now. It was clear enough -- one person waiting for another was like an arithmetical sum, and just as empty of emotion. Waiting. Simply one person doing nothing, over time, while another approached. Waiting was a heavy word. He felt it pressing down, heavy as a greatcoat."
McEwan's novel explores the difference between continually producing one another in our shared narratives and experiencing radically different narratives. Waiting falls under the latter. Narratives, for McEwan, are what bind us to one another and drive us apart. To atone is to be "at-one."
