“She saw herself as if from a distance: a forty-year-old woman, holding a cup of coffee, looking at two empty places at the table, and at the husband who was still here, and for a split second she wondered what other life that woman could have lived. What if she hadn’t come home to run the orchard and raise her children? What if she hadn’t gotten married so young? What kind of woman could she have become?”

Throughout the novel, Meredith questions her identity, especially now that her two daughters are away at college. The theme of The Links Between Family and Identity is introduced immediately with Meredith’s struggle with identity and who she is as a woman, as she ponders “what kind of woman” she would have been had she made other, less family-oriented choices in her life.

“In her mind, she cropped, framed, printed, and hung the image among the great ones she’d collected. Someday her portraits would show the world how strong and powerful women could be, as well as the personal cost of that strength.”

Nina devotes her life to documenting female strength, acknowledging that women and mothers make great sacrifices for the sake of their families. Ironically, Nina has yet to discover her mother’s strength and how much tragedy and trauma she’s overcome—a discovery that will form a central part of Conflict and Redemption Within Women’s Relationships in the novel.

“They’d always handled things differently, Nina and Meredith. Even as girls, Nina had fallen often and picked herself back up; Meredith had moved cautiously, rarely losing her balance. Nina had broken things; Meredith held them together.”

This passage demonstrates how different Nina’s and Meredith’s personalities are, leading to significant conflict when they have to work together after Evan’s death. The sisters have had to live with and accept Anya’s cold behavior, and in so doing, have learned to cope with life’s stresses and struggles in unhealthy ways.