Comfort & Joy

“All I know is that for more than three decades, my sister has been the bedrock of my life, and now I’m standing on sand. I have never felt so lost and alone.”

By comparing Joy’s emotional stability to physically standing on different kinds of earth, the author uses a metaphor to communicate the extent to which the absence of Stacey affects Joy. It also paints a picture of Joy on top of Stacey, using her for stability rather than seeing her as an equal. This quote highlights the theme of Processing Pain Through Love.

“‘But I’m supposed to be in Hope,’ I say to the emptiness around me. Trees commiserate, whisper in understanding. They know how it feels to be uprooted, disappointed. It’s bad enough that my one spontaneous decision in life leads to a plane crash; I could at least crash near my destination.”

Joy should be in a town called Hope in Canada, where she wanted to find a way to change in her life. The trees’ personification emphasizes both the liveliness of the environment there and the reflection Joy sees of her own emotions in the natural world. This quote alludes to The Mysterious Impact of Magic.

“A tug of loss and longing. I can’t help remembering how it used to be between me and Stacey at this magical time of year. Like the time she gave me the Holly Hobbie doll Santa had given her, just because I wanted it more.”

This quote demonstrates the power of memory in healing. As Joy watches Bobby decorate the Christmas tree, Joy’s own memories arise. This memory in particular mirrors her current relationship with Stacey—if she forgives her, she will be giving her sister her husband only because she “wants it more,” a reversal of their exchange in the past. This quote highlights Stacey’s core generosity and love for her sister.

“This morning, as I stand at my window and look across the yard, I see shadows moving in and out among the trees. It doesn’t surprise me that Bobby sees his mother in all this softness. There is an otherworldliness to the forest here. I also know how easy it is to see what you want to see.”

This quote foreshadows Joy’s realization that this forest did exactly to her as it did to Bobby. In her inability—both literally and figuratively—to see clearly, she saw what she wanted to see. This quote highlights The Mysterious Impact of Magic.

“The beach is beautiful. A full, fiery sun hangs in the teal blue sky. Golden streamers light the waves. I have never seen so much driftwood on a beach before, and it is no ordinary collection of sticks. It is a heaping, jumbled mass of silvery logs, shorn of branches and polished to white perfection. Many of them are more than one hundred feet in length. The trees along the road have been sculpted by the wind. They look like giant bonsai.”

Joy’s perception of the Pacific Ocean reflects the beauty and magic she is able to find in this environment. She uses imagery to paint the scene that feels so vivid to her. Even the ordinary driftwood is “silvery” and “polished to white perfection,” giving it a magical, dreamlike quality.

“I stare at Daniel, unable to look away, unable to stop thinking what if? What if I could fall in love again and start my life over? What if I could belong here?”

These rhetorical questions that arise in Joy’s mind are signals of her intense longing for a new life and love. Without responses, they hang in the world for only her to answer, as well as foreshadowing that Daniel is not aware of her presence when she visits Bobby through another channel.

“In an instant, this stormy landscape changes into a place of magical, impossible light.”

This quote describes the weather Joy witnesses in Rain Valley, hinting that her experience there is, in fact, not possible. It also reflects Joy’s sudden change in environment and mindset. The moment she arrives in Rain Valley, the storm of her old life parts and the light comes through. This quote highlights The Mysterious Impact of Magic.

“Everything stills; the world holds its breath. The gurgling water in the ditch turns into a child’s laugh. I can smell the pine trees again, and the rich scent of wet earth.”

Joy personifies the natural world in order to emphasize the fact that it behaves in sync as one living organism and Joy has surrendered to its will. She hears, smells, sees, and feels the world around her shift with the change of weather.

“People who have lost themselves in the dark woods of ordinary life, who have been betrayed by loved ones and forgotten how to be led by dreams.”

Joy draws a comparison between feeling lost in one’s life and feeling lost in the dark woods. This follows in the motif of Joy’s obscured vision blurring her view of the world. She also acknowledges that she needs a dream to lead her forward, one she finds in Bobby and Daniel. This quote highlights the theme of Finding Happiness By Helping Others.

“This night—and everything it represents—is the dream I’ve held onto all my life. A family held together by love, a child who needs me. A man who knows how to love. I want so desperately to belong here, to be invited to stay. I could start over here, maybe get a job at the local high school and help Daniel refurbish this place. I’d be good at it; I know I would. If only he’d ask me. If only I had the courage to say it first.”

Soon after she admits that she needs a dream to lead her forward, Joy describes playing games with Bobby and Daniel as “the dream [she’s] held onto all her life.” As she considers this, she begins to dream about the practical aspects of her imagined life here. For the first time, Joy considers that this dream could be a reality, and she understands what she wants in her future life.

“I look down. There, lying all alone on top of a bed of shiny black stones, is a bright white arrowhead. Moonlight hits it and reflects it back at me, turning it for a second into a fallen star.”

The white arrowhead represents both Bobby and Joy’s faith and Maggie’s love for her son. She compares it to a falling star because it fulfills their wishes. Later, it acts as Joy’s proof that she had ever been in Rain Valley. It also acts as Bobby’s proof of his mother’s love.

“Like Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion, we advance cautiously up the sidewalk toward the steps, which we take one at a time.”

Joy uses a simile to compare herself, Bobby, and Daniel to Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz. This comparison foreshadows the fact that Joy will be sent home in the same way that Dorothy was. Later, Joy will wish to be Dorothy in hopes that magic will bring her back to Rain Valley in the same way that Dorothy used magic to get home to Kansas. This quote alludes to The Mysterious Impact of Magic.

“Starting over. I’m seeing it. For all my dreams of complex new beginnings and convoluted endings, it can all be as easy as this: a boy singing hymns again. I’m sorry.”

As Joy watches Bobby sing in church on Christmas Eve, she recognizes her ability to start over. At the same time, she has flashbacks to her sister’s attempt at an apology that sent her on this journey in the first place. Bobby’s efforts to forgive God inspire Joy to forgive her sister.

“I lean forward. It is as much movement as I can make. ‘Believe in me,’ I say desperately, willing them to see with their hearts. I focus all my mind on it, thinking over and over again: Believe.”

Joy begs Bobby and Daniel to believe while being unable to offer any physical proof of her existence. This scene alludes to the tradition of Christmas books and movies in which children are asked to believe in Santa Claus. Again, Joy’s emphasis on the concept of sight comes into play as she implies that faith is the act of seeing with one’s heart.

“And there it is: the core of everything. We’re sisters. We know each other intimately. Our pasts, our secrets, our fears. It is a precious gift that we tried to throw away but can’t really let go of. Stacey bites her lower lip. It’s what she’s done her whole life when she’s scared. ‘I’m sorry, Joy. I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t mean…’”

The author uses anaphora to emphasize the consistency in their role in each other’s lives. Joy recognizes that they both tried to throw away the gift of their relationship, taking responsibility for their distance and deciding to heal.

“I never walked away from the crash. That’s what I know. Somehow I have to make it what I believe.”

This quote explains Joy’s inner battle between what she knows and what she believes. She grapples with logic versus faith throughout the story, and ultimately the truth and her belief begin to align.

“In the cold light of day, it makes sense. I was tired of hot, dry Bakersfield; I imagined a magical world of green grass and towering trees and impossible mist. On paper, it pencils out, makes perfect sense in a psych 101 kind of way. At night, however, it’s different. Then, the darkness—and my loneliness—just goes on and on and on. For the first time in my life, I can’t read to pass the time. Every hero becomes Daniel; every heartfelt moment makes me sob. Even movies are useless. When I turn on the television I remember Miracle on 34th Street and the Grinch; not to mention the fifteen Winnie-the-Pooh videos we watched.”

Joy tries to understand what happened to her by analyzing her own psyche and emphasizing the difference in the two environments—hot, dry California and the magical lively world she found in Rain Valley. She is able to see clearly during the day, but the darkness at night obscures her logic and lets her believe. Because she experienced a fairytale story with Bobby and Daniel, fictional stories do not help distract her.

“She knows about fading; maybe every woman of a certain age does, especially in quiet towns like this one where the sun can be so hot. Not like the rainforest. There, in that moist green and blue world, there is no drying up of a woman’s spirit.”

These lines explore the impact of the environment on a woman’s spirit. Comparing a woman to a plant that requires water to grow, Joy sees the wetness of the rainforest as a necessary part of her growth. In these lines, Joy sees how Bakersfield has taken a toll on her sister in the same way it has on her. Joy understands that she must return to Rain Valley in order to replenish herself.

“I feel like Dorothy, back in Kansas, a black-and-white girl in a black-and-white world, with memories in color…And I think: Dorothy had to click her heels together three times and say, ‘There’s no place like home.’ Even magic requires something.”

Continuing the comparison between Joy and Dorothy, Joy wonders what she must do to trigger the magic required to take her back to Rain Valley. Joy sees herself in Dorothy’s journey because she has no nonfictional stories that mirror her experience in the way that Dorothy’s does. In the same way that Dorothy’s world transforms from her colorful memories to her black-and-white real life, Joy remembers the magical, lively world she inhabited in Rain Valley as fundamentally different from her life in Bakersfield.

“‘I think Daniel and Bobby were…metaphors.’ ‘I flunked out of tech school, remember? What do you mean?’ ‘I think they represent the love that could be out there for me—if I’m bold enough to change my life.’ I take a deep breath and say: ‘The truth is, Stace, I’m tired of being alone. I want love, passion, and children. All of it.’”

In an effort to understand her experience, Joy concludes that Daniel and Bobby must have existed only to teach her a lesson—as metaphors, Joy can still absorb their influence in her own life even if she cannot prove that it happened. Emboldened by her takeaways from the rainforest, she admits what she wants out loud to Stacey.

“Yet I’m holding this arrowhead. With everything I am, everything I think and feel, I believe this. Of course, I’ve believed lots of crazy things…I walk over to my bathroom and hold my hand up to the mirror. There it is: small and white against my palm, like the tip of a Christmas tree.”

When she finds the arrowhead in her pocket, Joy doubts her mental wellbeing as she has for the past several months. She uses a mirror to prove to herself it is real, even using a simile to compare the arrowhead to the tip of a Christmas tree. This simile highlights The Mysterious Impact of Magic.

“‘What if I don’t find this place I’m looking for?’ There’s a crackling pause before my sister says, ‘You will.’ ‘How can you believe that?’ ‘Because you do.’ Her words sink in and settle. They give me something to cling to, remind me that though I may be crazy, I’m not alone. ‘Thanks.’”

Stacey offers the ultimate act of love to Joy by believing her truth only because it is her truth. By voicing her support, Joy is able to continue on her journey in Washington searching for Bobby and Daniel. Her sister’s faith in her propels her on her journey and is the final piece in their journey to healing as sisters.

“I wonder if there will ever be an answer to that. If I will someday know why my dream was a flawed and tattered version of reality or how I ended up here when I was hooked up to machines in a white bed in Bakersfield. For now, all I can do is shrug and say the thing I do know. ‘Magic.’ He thinks about that. ‘Okay.’”

Abandoning the logic that has plagued her for the past several months, Joy uses “magic” to explain the vast gap between their realities and the objective truth. Finally, she accepts both truths—that she was somehow in a hospital in Bakersfield and Rain Valley. The concept of “magic” allows them to trust their own minds rather than believe that they are “crazy.”