The first line from Grace’s journal that Olivia reflects on in the novel is Grace’s assertion that “Home is a choice” (3). For Olivia, this statement is a “riddle” that she can’t make sense of, in large part because the concept of “home” as a place that is safe, welcoming, and nurturing is outside of Olivia’s lived experience. Through the first half of Gallant, Olivia is offered little choice about the places and people that might offer her a home: Merilance is populated by girls and matrons who ostracize Olivia because of her disability, and Gallant, where she is forced to relocate, is owned by Matthew, who desperately wants her to leave. Though Olivia has a familial claim to Gallant, the house itself is not a physical space that is knowable or comforting to her. At every turn, the house shows her a new, discomfiting revelation about herself or her past. It’s impossible for Olivia to think of home as a “choice” because home has only ever been one thing for her—a place she cannot understand filled with people she’s better off not knowing.

As Olivia begins to explore Gallant and the world on the other side of the wall, she comes across the master, who has a very different conceptualization of what “home” means.