Local Woman Missing

“Gus is a fraidy-cat, not that I can blame him. Gus is the good one. I’m the one who’s bad. I’m the one always getting into trouble.”

Gus serves as an external manifestation of some of Carly’s thoughts and feelings, with Gus being more cautious and Carly more prone to taking risks. Carly blames herself and sees herself as inadequate or bad, revealing her trauma-induced lack of self-esteem. After her return to society, Carly continues to view herself as subservient to or lesser than others. In these lines, Kubica uses repetition for emphasis, repeating “I’m the one […]”

“I’m scared as heck, wondering what she wants to know my name for. But I tell her, anyway […] She don’t seem like the kind of lady who would snatch kids that aren’t hers and keep them in her basement.”

Kubica enriches each of the novel’s narrators with a unique voice. In Carly’s case, this includes a fearful outlook and rural accent. Kubica gives readers a glimpse of Carly’s mindset early on, providing context for Carly’s later struggles. She shows that Carly is not responsible for her erratic behavior, something Leo realizes only gradually.

“‘Meredith came from a broken family, you know,’ Josh says. ‘I did, too. We wanted ours to be different.’”

While the novel illustrates the lingering, debilitating effects of trauma, these lines offer hope for traumatized individuals to forge a new life. Josh and Meredith’s marriage is a close and happy one, at least until the weeks leading up to Meredith’s death. Delilah’s return at the novel’s end signifies at least partial healing; Meredith’s reputation and love for her family is reaffirmed and Delilah reconnects with Josh and Leo.

“The truth is, Dad was never much of a dad to me until he got over missing you. But now you’re back and, in his eyes, you’re all that matters.”

At first, Leo resents Carly for drawing Josh’s attention away from him. He will show growth by accepting Carly and supporting her. We will also see his vulnerability through the earlier timeline, where we learn that he was bullied.

“The truth? No one likes me. I’m the weird kid, the freak, the loser. I have you to thank for that.”

Leo is, or believes himself to be, a social outcast. He attributes this to Meredith and Delilah’s disappearance and unwanted attention from the public. Leo fails to acknowledge that such attention, by itself, may not be enough to consign Leo to a life of social awkwardness. Instead, Leo’s personality, self-esteem, and relationships are all affected by the trauma of losing his mother and sister at such a young age. In these lines, Kubica uses short, declarative sentences, creating emphasis. She also repeats “the” to create tension: “I’m the weird kid, the freak, the loser.” (Bold my emphasis.)

“That night, the cops keep watch on our house. They sit parked in their police car, same as the news crews do, everyone vying for a piece of you.”

Leo sees the police presence and media frenzy that follow Carly’s discovery as stemming from the same source: Each, he thinks, is trying to use or benefit from Carly in some way, whether to validate themselves or to satiate public interests. The intrusion of the public sphere into his family’s private lives speaks to the hypocrisy and duality of the suburban environment. In the suburbs, people keep their own secrets even as they consume those of others through media and gossip.

“I glance up at Cassandra, Piper and Arlo across the street, heading out of their own home. They look like something out of a magazine. They’re completely put together and holding hands as they trot down their stone walkway and to the sidewalk. They’re a picture-perfect family. […] We don’t look half-bad ourselves, considering. On the outside, we’re put together, too. But inside I’m all wrought up, my panic and agitation tucked neatly behind a smile.”

Here, Meredith acknowledges the difference between appearance and reality within her community. Just as Meredith appears to be fine outwardly but experiences underlying distress, so too does Cassandra harbor hidden resentments toward Meredith. Kubica implies that hidden tensions and conflict are more common than not.

“A common belief during labor is that a baby’s needs supersede that of the mother’s. Women don’t always know they have options. […] Doctors do things that verge on sexual assault to me. They stick their hands inside a woman’s vagina without telling her first. They disregard a woman’s pain. They use forced or invasive practices. In the labor room, no doesn’t always mean no.”

Meredith likens some doctors’ treatment of women to rape. She states her belief that consent and bodily autonomy are just as important during childbirth as at any other time. Her instinct is to care for and protect disadvantaged women, which makes it difficult for her to brush aside Shelby’s death and her role in it, especially given their previous doula-client relationship. Through Meredith, Kubica considers the sometimes conflicting values of security and freedom, and how women in labor are too often treated as captives and second-class citizens.

“‘Excuse us,’ I say, begging their pardon for being in my own home. I feel a man’s eyes on me as I collect strawberries from the refrigerator, wash and slice them in the kitchen sink. It’s unnerving.”

Kubica establishes a mood of suspense, foreboding, and paranoia within Kate’s home and suburbia at large. Kate sees the presence of male workers in a home where she lives with another woman as an affront to her and Bea’s privacy. Ironically, the greatest threat to Kate’s happiness comes not from the workers but from Bea, suggesting the difficulty of discerning between appearance and reality.

“You passed on a soft, warm bed to come sleep on the cold, hard basement floor in the dark. Because for eleven years, it’s all you’ve known. In some effed up way, you find comfort in it, being down here in our dark, dingy basement.”

Only gradually, and never quite fully, does Leo come to grasp the extent of Carly’s ordeal and its lasting effect on her. At first, he views her as bizarre, her behavior inexplicable. In moments like this one, he begins to see things from her point of view. He realizes that her behavior is part of The Lingering Effects of Trauma.

“I also feel guilty for lying to Josh. But what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. I’m lying to protect him. To protect Shelby. To protect my career.”

Meredith’s decision to keep secrets from Josh illustrates her tendency to repress, as well as the external factors that contribute to her decision. These include Josh’s well-meaning concern for her, which conflicts with Meredith’s love for her work. Spread thin due to her many, sometimes conflicting, obligations as a mother, a wife, a doula, and a yoga instructor, Meredith resists outdated gender roles. The short sentences and use of repetition—“to protect”—create drama. They also give us a window into how Meredith rationalizes secret-keeping to herself.

“But this time when he lines his whale and fish up on the edge of the tub, they don’t gracefully swan dive into the water as they usually do. Instead, they kick one another into the tub. It’s aggressive. Mean.”

Meredith fears something is amiss when Leo’s toys begin roughhousing each other. Leo’s reenactment of the bullying he experiences demonstrates the cyclical nature of trauma, setting the stage for the awkwardness and insecurities that manifest during his teenage years. The 11-year gap between the novel’s timelines shows how long-lasting and deeply felt such trauma can be.

“Only then does he smile. It’s supercilious, predatory. ‘If I’m going to be your doctor,’ he says, ‘you need to trust me. Okay, Katie?’ he asks, and I mechanically nod, speechless, not able to correct his blunder. I’ve never been a Katie or a Katherine.”

Kate finds Dr. Feingold to be everything she would expect a murderer to be. By not calling her by the correct name, Dr. Feingold denies Kate her dignity and individuality, using his credentials and position to claim authority over her. Playing the role of an expectant mother, Kate submits to his wishes and ends up feeling violated. This implies that the women who go to Dr. Feingold out of genuine need are impacted in much the same way.

“The absence of a no should never mean yes.”

While Shelby is in the throes of labor, Dr. Feingold proceeds to make several significant decisions with little or no input from Shelby, to Meredith’s dismay. Dr. Feingold doesn’t honor Shelby’s freedom to choose. He contradicts Meredith’s advice and hurts the baby. In the above quote, Meredith underscores the book’s philosophy about consent: just because a woman doesn’t say “no,” that doesn’t mean she is acquiescing or providing consent.

“Leo is your family, Josh. He needs you as much as Meredith and Delilah do.”

Kate advises Josh not to neglect Leo while searching for his wife and daughter. Both Josh and Leo have been traumatized. For Leo, this is compounded by the sense that he is not as important to Josh as Meredith and Delilah are. This shows how the effects of trauma can reverberate and compound—Meredith’s death and Delilah’s abduction lead to Leo’s sense of neglect and abandonment.

“We can’t save her but we can save ourselves.”

After hitting Shelby with her car, Bea argues that she and Meredith have a right to cover up the accident to prevent the fallout from ruining their lives. Bea’s choices make the situation worse, damaging more lives as a result. Bea tries to attain both security and freedom, but ends up losing both.

“I’ve never seen this side of Bea. I don’t know who this woman is, but I know this woman is as scared as me, even if it manifests itself as anger and control. Bea is a good person. She’s not a psychopath. But she’s backed into a corner, desperate for a way out. This is that way.”

Meredith describes Bea’s difficult choice. Meredith and Bea serve as foils, responding differently to hitting Shelby. Meredith opts for full transparency, while Bea attempts subterfuge and escape. Bea values her own wellbeing and security above anyone else’s, while Meredith is driven more by conscience and community. Though Bea is selfish, Meredith points out that Bea is not a villain. She sees Bea as acting out of desperation, rather than being a cold, calculating criminal.

“I don’t deserve Josh after what I’ve done. Josh is a good man.”

Though Bea came up with the plan to hide Shelby’s body, Meredith feels increasing guilt over her complicity. Her guilt spills over into the other areas of her life, robbing her of satisfaction in her work and personal relationships. Her escape from the consequences of Shelby’s death is a hollow victory, since she remains traumatized by what happened. Kubica again explores the theme of Freedom Versus Captivity. In Meredith’s case, she is imprisoned by her own remorse. Kubica shows how this can be as strong a form of captivity as physical imprisonment.

“Dad ages every day. He aged about a decade when Mom died. He’s aged another now that you’re home.”

Leo uses the aging process hyperbolically to describe the impact his mother’s death and Carly’s arrival have had on Josh. The image of Josh rapidly aging indicates that both events have significantly impacted his physical and mental wellbeing. Even when Josh thinks that Delilah has been restored to them, he seems to age. This suggests that there is no easy way to reverse or negate trauma—to some extent, the effects are permanent.

“Killing Shelby is one thing. But letting Jason take the fall for it is another, because that’s premeditated and purposeful.”

Meredith draws the line when she realizes that Bea is deliberately framing Jason for Shelby’s murder. Bea’s actions show that she is willing to do anything to keep herself from going to jail, even allowing an innocent person to suffer. What Meredith fails to realize is that Bea is even willing to kill Meredith to protect herself. Each action Bea takes is progressively worse; first, she accidentally kills someone, then she allows a stranger to suffer for it, then she deliberately kills her friend. This illustrates how bad choices lead to worse ones. Bea only stops short of killing Delilah, a child.

“We’re all guilty of assuming you’re pretty much helpless. […] You’re stronger than we think. You’re stronger than you think.”

Leo comes to admire Carly for her resilience and resourcefulness. He begins to see past Carly’s deeply ingrained submissiveness to the fierce, risk-taking core of her character. His empathy for her suggests that Leo himself may be stronger than he thinks.

“Bea changed significantly after what happened to Meredith and Delilah. I suppose we all did. Bea became less relaxed, less carefree, more over-burdened.”

Kate notices a change in Bea following Meredith’s death and Delilah’s disappearance, which she attributes simply to their proximity to the Dickeys. Kate’s observation takes on significance as readers learn the extent of Bea’s role in what happened to Meredith and Delilah. Though Bea sought to protect her freedom by killing Meredith and abducting Delilah, her life changes even before she’s caught. Like with Meredith’s guilt, Kubica illustrates the power of mental captivity.

“‘Carly,’ Leo interjects again. He hovers somewhere behind me. ‘Her name is Carly.’ This time when he says it, he enunciates each word at a time.”

Leo goes from blaming Carly for his troubles to admiring and respecting her. In contrast to Josh, who refers to her simply as “the girl” after learning that she’s not Delilah, Leo insists on referring to her by name. Leo shows that he considers her no less deserving of respect even though she is not his sister. His experiences with Carly prepare him to be more compassionate and understanding when Delilah rejoins the family.