I notice that in the klara sax sections, Delillo constantly writes "She loved ______". She loves so many things. But she doesn't really love people. She loves art, loves the way she sees the world, but she never loves another person. We don't know a ton about her, but she strikes me as very self-centered...unable to see beyond herself.
What about her daughter, Teresa? I thought Klara still had some vestiges of concern for her especially since they still seem to keep somewhat of an effort to meet up occasionally (375,376). "She was better off with her father and I understood that but it consumed me, being separated like that" (389). But then I guess you could argue that her only preoccupation with her daughter is finding a redemption in reversing the breakdown that she initiated with the divorce, which would definitely be selfish.
I feel like Klara and Teresa really only meet up because they feel obligated to do so. It doesn't seem like Klara really even likes Teresa: "It was always hard with Teresa . . .[she] seemed to be saying that daddy loves me exactly the way I am but my mother doesn't, my mother thinks I can be better and smarter and know better and smarter people" (375). Granted, this is what Klara thinks that Teresa thinks, but since Klara is thinking those things, it's like she believes them (does that make any sense?). But I guess that love and concern are two very different things.
I think it is also easier to see Klara as cold because of how Albert is portrayed. We like Albert. He is kind and loving and going to die. Anyone who divorced him must be selfish.
I agree that she seems to connect to objects instead of people. She is successful in transforming objects into beauty, and yet she has two failed marriages under her belt. It says on page 400, "... she also knew she could never again have a friend like Rochelle or a mother like her mother for that matter and she looked across ledges and parapets to the old skyscraper with the massed midsection and tehe sunburst panelng, ten blocks north, and thought how wonderful it was, what an accidental marvel to come upon a memory floating at the level of a glazed mosaic high on a midtown tower--the old spoked sun that brings you luck." A lot of the characters' inabilities to connect are related to things that happened to them as children, like Nick's relationship with his father. I wonder if we're going to learn something similar about Klara.