Marital Vacation - Titia Sutherland

It is October when Laura decides to take a break from family life. She has an almost perfect husband, two teenage daughters, and a boring, easy lifestyle. Richard protects her from all conceivable worries, persuades her not to go to work, is the best cook, and generally organizes everything better than she does, enduring her attempts to write poetry with amusing grace. Laura feels that she is gradually being suffocated.
She carefully plots her plan -- to spend two, maybe three weeks in blissful peace and isolation, away from her family and fellow citizens -- in the hope of finding inspiration and writing.
The small house carved into the Cornish cliffs is an extraordinary fit for Laura's longing to be with herself, but almost immediately she is drawn into real and much more difficult problems than Laura's need to find her identity. Two men begin to dominate her life: Joe, a sad and sick boy who desperately needs help; and Mark, an academic neighbor who is still grieving for his wife. Laura's marital vacation is doomed from the start.