A Family Matter

The most detailed and complex relationship presented in the narrative is between Maggie and her father, Heron, yet both are conscious of the fact that they lead what would widely be considered a “normal” life. Maggie has an unremarkable job, performs a mixture of daily domestic tasks, and enjoys her life with her husband and two children. Heron keeps a similar schedule, performing household tasks and maintaining his relationship with his daughter and grandchildren. Even in her trips to work, “Maggie watches herself like a character in a film. […] She likes the commute, and she hates it, the glamour and boredom of it” (45). She considers herself almost a cinematically perfect example of normalcy. However, this juxtaposes the enormity of emotional unrest that all of the characters are feeling. Dawn’s experience with institutional antigay bias, Maggie’s loneliness without her mother, and Heron’s terminal illness create huge internal conflicts that contrast the conventional lifestyles they had all thus far been living.

This double crisis of Heron’s illness and Maggie’s intense desire to know more about the past hits them both hard because neither is good at talking about difficult matters, and neither embrace change easily. Heron’s first reaction following his diagnosis is to hide in a supermarket freezer—as if he can freeze time and keep everything the way it is. Four months go by before Heron confides in Maggie about his cancer diagnosis. Meanwhile, Maggie feels increasing pressure from within to find out about her past, yet she too finds it almost impossible to bring it up, especially since she knows her father is ill. At one point, she even doubts whether it is wise to investigate the matter: “Her own childhood is so far away now, was it even worth it, going back in time like this?” (179). Both Heron and his daughter like everything to stay the same, and Maggie often muses anxiously about the passage of time and the reality of change. It is this very attitude that kept Dawn from embracing her sexuality for so long, as she felt it better to merely do what she was told and try to lead a normal life.

In this regard, Maggie shares more traits with Dawn than Heron, as Maggie struggles with an internal conflict between her desire to preserve her peaceful, ordinary life and her need for excitement or self-discovery. She and Conor share a date night within the novel, something that occurs because she expressed she was growing bored in their relationship. Similarly, her son Tom is increasingly frustrated with their predictable lifestyles, and Maggie expresses sympathy for his perspective. She is hesitant to branch out, though, feeling that later in life as she faces death, “She will be too afraid, even then, to shake off her responsibilities. To live freely” (182-83). She recognizes that preserving her lifestyle requires effort and resistance against change, even if said change would allow for a degree of freedom that custom prevents.

Nonetheless, it is her time spent dwelling on this internal conflict that indicates her key difference from Heron, who has prioritized his and Maggie’s traditional lifestyle above all else. Heron had numerous opportunities to reincorporate Dawn into their lives, but he repeatedly chose not to because it would be emotionally difficult and socially unconventional. In contrast, after finally learning the truth and taking time to process it, Maggie accepts that the tension and unpredictability of change is worth it to build a relationship with Dawn. From the outside, Maggie’s life doesn’t appear much different. Even when considering how to reconcile with Heron, she thinks, “This is how they would fix it […] Not with grand gestures or apologies, but by settling back into his updates about the garden, what passed for gossip about the neighbors. They will get on with it, as families do” (204). The resolution that occurs within the novel thus comes not from a major change to the characters’ lifestyles, but rather through changes of perspective. Their ordinary lives will continue largely as before, but their experiences betray the complexity and depth occurring internally for each of them.