Honey

The novel’s main conflict revolves around two family mysteries that Melody seeks to solve: Who is her father calling “honey,” and what was her mother like? Melody’s pursuit of answers explores the problem of family secrets.

The first secret appears when Melody and her father encounter one of Melody’s mother’s old friends in the grocery store. Melody has no idea who the woman hugging her is because she has no connection to her mother or her mother’s friends. This is because “[a]s far as Melody could tell, her father never felt it was the right time or place to talk about her mother” (11). When Melody once asked her father about her mother’s death, “It was the first time she’d ever seen him cry, and she’d never brought up the subject again” (11). The sensitive nature of the topic creates a boundary between Melody and her father that Melody is unwilling to cross, making details about Melody’s mother a family secret that Melody must uncover for herself.

The other mystery arises when Melody overhears her father refer to someone on the phone as “honey.” After weeks of her father being more absent-minded than normal and whistling “You Are My Sunshine,” Melody finally guesses why he’s acting so strangely.