“Leni would do as she was asked and do it with a good attitude. She would be the new girl in school again. Because that’s what love was.”

At the beginning of the novel, Leni decides to go along with her father’s idea to move to Alaska, despite being unable to finish the school year in Seattle. She puts her family’s well-being, especially her father’s, above her own. As she grows older, she realizes how this conception of love is stifling. She begins pursuing her own desires through her relationship with Matthew and her dreams of going to Anchorage to study. She also learns that love is the willingness to reestablish connections after separation.

“‘Sweet Jesus, it’s 1974. I have a job. I make money. And a woman can’t get a credit card without a man’s signature. It’s a man’s world, baby girl.’” 

Women’s restricted agency during the late ‘70s contextualizes Cora’s struggle to find herself. As she goes to ask for a credit card, which she won’t receive, Leni sees her mother dress more conservatively than she would normally to embody a more traditional form of femininity. The knowledge that women are at a societal disadvantage informs Cora and Leni’s feelings of victimization. The idea of it being “a man’s world” is also the reason they must leave Alaska after Cora kills Ernt. Cora and Leni cannot count on the law’s sympathy.

“Leni heard her mother start to cry, and somehow that made it worse, as if her tears watered this ugliness, made it grow.”

After Ernt hits Cora, Leni realizes that her mother has tolerated her father’s violence for years while making excuses for him. Leni realizes that Cora’s excuses have enabled her father’s violence to continue.