“As much as I’d been worried about her as she went on this tear, I was even more concerned about what would happen when she was all done, and the only mess left was us.”

Deborah’s methods of dealing with grief are focused on cleaning up physical messes and effectively portraying The Illusion of Perfection. Her character arc comes from later recognizing that the mess must be faced if they ever hope to heal from it.

“But here in the present, my mother and I had no choice but to move ahead. We worked hard, me at school, her at outselling all the other builders. We parted our hair cleanly and stood up straight, greeting company—and the world—with the smiles we practiced in the quiet of our now-too-big dream house full of mirrors that showed the smiles back. But under it all, our grief remained. Sometimes she took more of it, sometimes I did. But always, it was there.”

This passage indicates the ways in which Macy and Deborah obsess over The Illusion of Perfection as one way the Diverse Manifestations of Grief present themselves. At the same time, it illustrates how much of an illusion it really is and how underneath it all, there is unresolved grief festering and growing more disruptive over time.

“I just stood there, holding my purse, suddenly entirely too aware of the nail I’d broken as I unfastened my seat belt in the parking lot. I’d put so much time into getting dressed for this first day, ironing my shirt, making my hair part perfectly straight, redoing my lipstick twice. Now, though, my nail, ripped across the top, jagged, seemed to defeat everything, even as I tucked it into my palm, hiding it.”

The broken nail that Macy fixates on symbolizes The Unpredictability of Life and the inevitable imperfections that will happen just by living. It also alludes to the realization Macy will later have that perfection is an impossible feat to achieve.