“Misery wafts off Lucy like an overpowering perfume.”

The author’s vivid description of misery as a “perfume” reflects the narrative’s overall focus on raising emotions like ghosts to haunt each character with the echoes of what might have been. In this scene, Vivian’s initial thoughts about her half-sister indirectly characterize them both. Lucy’s grief-stricken response to the news of Hank’s death broadcasts her emotional vulnerability, while Vivian’s snap judgment reveals her simmering resentment and derision over Lucy’s very existence.

“Their old intimacy has morphed into something painfully rigid. It’s horrifying, just another thing to grieve.”

In this passage, Lucy reflects on the dynamics of her crumbling marriage to Patrick and laments his decision to ask for a divorce. Her anguish over this loss is compounded by the news of Hank’s death. Now, as she grieves the end of her marriage, she finds a fresh source of loss in the realization that she can never again enjoy the familiar intimacy that she once shared with her husband. This description conveys how unsteady she feels and contrasts her own sadness with Vivian’s anger.

“[Vivian] retreats to the bathroom with a pair of rubber gloves. There’s a long, pathetic silence before she rushes through the kitchen, prissy and squealing, and hurls the bloated rodent into the woods. It’s all very dramatic. Isn’t New York City famous for its rats?”

Lucy’s scornful thoughts about Vivian show that although Vivian tries to project a tough, impervious image, she harbors elements of squeamishness as well. Her dramatic reaction to finding a dead rat in the toilet—a common occurrence after winter at the cabin—indicates that she possesses a more sensitive, vulnerable side.

“Lucy doesn’t have the heart to tell [her students] that deciding who to become is the easiest part. Making it happen is another problem altogether.”

In this scene, Lucy’s reflections show that her life is not what she expected it to be. Though she planned to move to Portland, Dawn’s breast cancer brought her home immediately after college, and after her mother’s recovery, Patrick’s successful business rendered a move to Portland nonsensical. Lucy has never done the things she meant to, and she regrets the unrealized status of her discarded dreams. Now, her sense of disappointment leads her to protect her students from the disillusionment she experiences.

“It wasn’t just a couch. It was a memorial. A shrine like the rest of this whole damn place.”

Vivian remembers when Hank got angry at her for spilling wine on the couch that his father once bought for his mother. He wanted to stop time and honor his parents’ memory by refusing to allow any changes to the cabin, as though doing this would somehow make up for their deaths and for the fact that they were trying to stop him from “ruining” his life with Dawn. Hank’s desire to stop time—an impossibility—caused both of his families a great deal of pain. Rather than allow his grief to transform him, it paralyzed him, and now, his adult daughters must learn from his mistakes.

“[Lucy] feels as if there’s a heartsick madwoman on one shoulder and a drill sergeant with a bullhorn full of tough love on the other.”

Lucy desperately wants to reconcile with Patrick, but she also doesn’t want to beg, and she chastises herself for her desolation. This simile recalls the familiar image of the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. However, Lucy knows that her ambivalence stems from her inability to choose whether to give in to her anguish or listen to a harsher part of herself that wants to move on.

“After days of Lucy making Vivian feel like the Wicked Witch of the West Village, [Caleb’s] simple compliment genuinely touches [Vivian].”

This passage makes an allusion to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’s famous antagonist to emphasize the idea that Lucy makes Vivian feel like a villain merely for wanting to sell a property to which she has no real emotional connection. This reference also includes a pun; when Vivian adds the word “Village” to the end of the character’s title, she implies that her background as a New Yorker merely exacerbates Lucy’s poor opinion of her.

“It’s like turkey on Thanksgiving, you know? It’s flavorless, dry, it puts you to sleep, nobody actually likes it. But every year, you make the turkey anyway because that’s just what you do. That’s how I feel about Maine.”

In this passage, Vivian describes her view of Maine to Oscar, emphasizing its status as a tired, nonsensical tradition that imposes itself on her life. This simile portrays her lack of enthusiasm for the area, and her negative feelings about the cabin also establish a baseline for her future transformation. As she develops kinder thoughts toward the place, her new attitude stands in sharp contrast to her initial disdain, especially when she ultimately decides to move to Portland after spending two months in Fox Hill.

“The last time Lucy felt this lost on a date, she was fifteen years old. (Reader, she married him.)”

By addressing the reader directly in this passage, the author creates a metafictional moment and draws attention to the status of the novel as a novel, temporarily shattering the illusion that real people’s lives and emotions are at stake. The parenthetical aside also invites the “Reader” to analyze Lucy’s actions and choices more acutely, given that they are part of a fully contrived pattern and a broader philosophical message about The Ambiguous Nature of Morality and The Impact of Parental Secrets.

“Lucy knows she’s setting herself up for rejection and humiliation. She’s essentially flailing around naked, pulling her heart out, and waving it around in front of her half-sister’s face.”

This hyperbole emphasizes how vulnerable Lucy feels when she tries to get Vivian to stay in the house for the summer after breaking up with Oscar. Lucy has lost her husband, her father, and her job; overcome with grief and emotional instability, she feels utterly raw and exposed. Her reference to her “half-sister” also emphasizes the gulf that stands between the two women, who have yet to fully acknowledge and embrace their relationship.

“Spending time with Lucy isn’t comfortable, but it might be the most meaningful interaction she’s had with—family?—in a long time.”

Vivian’s familial relationships are less than fulfilling; she ruined her relationship with Hank after overhearing him on the phone with Lucy, and she and Celeste were never close because Celeste cared more about her career than her daughter. Now, as Vivian hesitantly begins to think of Lucy as family, she recognizes that she now has an opportunity to forge a fulfilling relationship with a relative.

“In another scene, Annie complains to her mother about living apart from Hallie, pouting, ‘No offense, Mom, but this arrangement really sucks.’ ‘It could be so much worse,’ Vivian says. Lucy shoots her a small, nervous smile.”

The text alludes to The Parent Trap, a film about twin sisters whose divorced parents raise them separately and quite differently, without knowledge of each other’s existence. In the film, although the sisters initially hate one another, they become best friends. This allusion foreshadows the changing relationship between Vivian and Lucy. Although the tension between them is high, their relationship will ultimately change just as dramatically as the twins’ does.

“The brush of [Harrison’s] skin against [Lucy’s] makes her feel as brightly lit as any star. Their hands drop, but he doesn’t let go. Comfort has cracked open between them, and now she’s eager for more. Parched for romance, she wants Harrison to kiss her.”

The use of vivid figurative language in this passage conveys Lucy’s sense of coming back to life in Harrison’s affectionate presence after several months of suffering and distress. Her eagerness is reflected in the comparison of her to a “brightly lit” star. The next metaphor also emphasizes how closed off her emotions have been; now that she is developing a romantic relationship, she compares comfort to something that might “crack open” like a dam that breaks, allowing her emotions to leap forth and slake her “parched” need for love.

“Vivian takes the final step from the swinging plank to the fixed platform […] She feels invincible.”

Just as Lucy is experiencing a sense of transformation with Harrison, Vivian is undergoing her own. While on the ropes course with Caleb, she is initially paralyzed with fear but learns that she can face scary or difficult situations alone. The experience of overcoming physical obstacles helps her gain the confidence she needs to tackle life challenges such as opening a business without Oscar.

“Lucy cuts her off with a snap. ‘Dad died and I didn’t even get a sympathy casserole. You’re getting handed a fortune.’ Mortified and ashamed of her lack of self-awareness, Vivian says, ‘Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry.’”

In the beginning, Vivian is much more likely to lash out at Lucy when she feels judged, but in this moment, her self-critical response to Lucy’s accusation shows just how significantly both women have changed. Even as Lucy becomes bolder and develops more self-respect, Vivian grows more aware of her own flaws and mistakes. This juxtaposition of their experiences occurs after they find Harrison and Celeste at the house and Lucy learns that Vivian has secretly put the property back on the market.

“Vivian is nauseated with shame and frustration. Deep down, she knows Lucy isn’t being unreasonable. And while it’s true that this mess is Hank’s fault, it’s also true that Vivian has the power to right his wrongs. It’s just not fair that she’d have to sacrifice her own dreams in the process.”

This scene demonstrates the impact of parental secrets, for although Vivian knows that her father is to blame for the difficult situation in which she and Lucy find themselves, she also feels a responsibility to fix it. If she doesn’t, she’s no better than he was. If she does, the very act of splitting the money with Lucy will require Vivian to give up her own dreams. The candid tone of this passage reflects her feeling that she must now make an impossibly unfair decision due to her father’s failings.

“It didn’t seem realistic for two people to pledge to be with each other and only each other until death did them part. Monogamy was a romantic ideal, but humans were flawed by nature.”

Vivian rationalizes her decision to become romantically involved with Oscar by reflecting that he is stuck in an unhappy marriage. Her action therefore illustrates the ambiguous nature of morality, as she ironically engages in unethical behavior that mirrors the past mistakes of her father. Later, she’ll realize that she is exploiting this moral ambiguity as a loophole, and when she realizes her similarity to her father, she will end her affair with Oscar for good.

“[Vivian] felt like she was being boiled alive in a pot of shame stirred by the ultimate hypocrite.”

This simile describes the way Vivian felt on Father’s Day when Hank’s questions prompted her to reveal that she was dating her married boss. However, his judgment sparked her anger over his hypocrisy, spurring her to accuse him of cheating on Celeste. The narrative indirectly implies that this fraught interaction may have contributed to his heart attack later that day, and in any case, the unresolved argument causes her a great deal of guilt.

“She should’ve been relieved to discover her dad was innocent, but instead, she felt nauseated with regret. If her dad never cheated, then she’s been icing him out for half her life for no reason […] If this really was all one big misunderstanding, it was fatal. It frayed their relationship beyond repair. It cauterized the innocent part of herself she could no longer get back.”

When Hank professed that he was never unfaithful in his marriage, Vivian immediately feared that she destroyed their relationship for no reason. She didn’t allow him to explain because she was so afraid to learn the extent of her mistake. Her description employs the image of cauterization—the process of burning a wound to stanch the flow of blood—as a metaphor for her decision to close herself off to Hank to prevent more pain after she began to suspect him of infidelity.

“What have you done to her? […] It’s like she’s Laura Ingalls Wilder.”

When Oscar comes to the cabin, his derisive comment about Vivian displays his displeasure with the changes he sees in her, and it is also clear that he has no understanding of the things that are most important to her. When he makes this remark to Lucy, his tactless joke compares Vivian to the famous 19th-century pioneer woman on whose life the Little House on the Prairie series is based. His allusion offends Lucy because he is demeaning a rural lifestyle and suggesting that Vivian is losing her cosmopolitan edge just because she knows how to grill food and drive a boat.

“I’m done with him. That letter would’ve meant everything to me back then. It could’ve changed my life. And he just…what, decided not to bother with giving this to me after all?”

Upon reading the confessions in Hank’s unsent letter, Lucy finally gets angry with her father, feeling emotions similar to those that Vivian has harbored for a long time. Ironically, just as Vivian needs to let go of her anger so that she can move on, Lucy needs to get angry at those who have mistreated her so that she can grow. Getting angry with Hank is her first step toward standing up for herself and setting personal boundaries with the remaining men in her life.

“Lucy knows what she’s getting herself into: brokenhearted days, lonely nights, long stretches of feeling like a hopeless failure. But she’s also making room for something better.”

Not long after Lucy allows herself to get angry with Hank, she develops the self-respect she needs to reject Patrick’s meager attempts at a relationship. When she realizes that he doesn’t value her as she deserves to be valued, she finally has the confidence and dignity to leave him. Her grief has transformed her from a woman desperate for love into a woman who loves and values herself.

“Vivian used to think of her mother as just cold, but now she sees something else. Celeste is constantly fighting to pull a polished veneer over a pit of sadness and insecurity. That’s why she snipped Dawn out of Hank’s life […] Worse, Celeste never fully felt loved—not by Hank and maybe not by Vivian either.”

One of Vivian’s most significant developments occurs when she learns to have empathy for others. In this moment, she takes a new view of her mother and fosters a sense of compassion for Celeste, whom she previously blamed for being cold and inattentive. Now, as she realizes that Celeste was in pain, too, it is clear that she has used Grief as a Catalyst for Personal Transformation.