But it is there, unavoidable. Vera thinks she's made Annie a lesbian because her own sexuality asserted it over the needs of her daughter. That seems a guilty sort of logic. She's full of guilt there, wishes to free herself, but like most people, finds it extremely difficult. She accepts Annie's homosexuality more than Bennet does, because she comes out with it honestly in that conversation.
Bennet is really rather cowardly.
Otherwise you are going to superimpose your own heroes, so to speak, on the contradictions that are in human nature. If you look at Ben one way, he's a good man, loyal, loving. Novelists ask questions, they don't give answers. So that's a question about Ben. He doesn't wish to see or understand her life.