“She can’t see the ocean behind it, but she knows it’s there, the same way she could pull into her driveway and feel her husband in his office typing his manuscript. Love was an invisible wire, connecting them always.”

Phoebe reflects on the intangible yet persistent nature of love. This comparison highlights her deep, almost instinctual connection with her husband, suggesting that their bond served as a powerful, unwavering force in Phoebe’s life. Matt’s infidelity and the severing of their “invisible wire” significantly contributed to Phoebe’s symptoms of depression.

“But now Phoebe stands before a nineteenth-century Newport hotel in an emerald silk dress, the only item in her closet she can honestly say she still loves, probably because it was the one thing she had never worn.”

Phoebe’s meticulous selection of her appearance on the day she plans to die by suicide reinforces a recurring motif that links personal appearance to internal values. Like choosing a wedding dress, Phoebe invests considerable thought into her attire for this life-altering moment, underscoring how personal appearance reflects her inner self and her judgments of others.

“Yet there the line is, stretching all the way through the lobby and past the historic oak staircase. The people in it look wrong, too—wearing windbreakers and jeans and sneakers.”

Phoebe’s arrival at the Cornwall Inn highlights her sense of alienation and disconnection from her surroundings. The incongruity between the formal setting and the casual attire of the people highlights her feelings of being out of place in the environment she once idealized. She judges the people around her not by the content of their character but by clothing she finds inappropriate for the setting, evidenced by juxtaposing windbreakers, jeans, and sneakers with a historic oak staircase.