Laura’s story is not so much the story of redemption as it is a story of reclamation. She begins the narrative lost. She initially sees Padua as a sanctuary that makes her “unhappy existence more bearable” (5). However, she comes to see it as a passageway toward her reengagement into the difficult reality of living.

At 35, Laura has lived a life shaped by regret. After a failed marriage and a child lost to miscarriage, what she knows of love now is how to live without it. Hers is a life of quiet discontent and low self-esteem because of her abiding fear over the implications of risk. A bright child who becomes a rapacious reader with the promise of going to university and becoming a writer, Laura opts to pursue the far safer route of marriage. When that marriage collapses after years of neglect and abuse and Laura, loaded with anti-anxiety medication, finds her way to Anthony’s employment, she is very much like any of his other lost objects.

Anthony and his abiding love for the dead Therese reveals to Laura the possibility of love not to destroy and humiliate but to lift and sustain. In opening herself up to the risk of finding comfort and strength with Freddy, Laura discovers the power of love.