The Family Remains

“I am awash with emotion for which I have insufficient language. A churning in my soul of loss and emptiness and lack and incompleteness. I am incomplete. I have always felt incomplete.”

Henry’s reflections garner sympathy from the reader as Jewell reveals Henry’s internal struggle to find fulfillment. His emotions are human and relatable, and help the reader understand why Henry is obsessed with finding Phin: He believes Phin may hold the key to taking away his loneliness.

“His password is 0000. Can you even believe that? I mean, that’s, like, psychopathic.”

Alf’s observation foreshadows the sinister side of Henry. Although Henry hides it well, his trauma-derived obsessions add depth to his character and intrigue to the novel. Jewell uses foreshadowing like this to plant doubts in the reader’s mind about Henry’s motivations; Henry is poised between being well-adjusted and creepy in ways that make it hard to classify him as “good” or “evil.”

“She thought of how she’d contorted herself and her habits and her behavior for twenty years to be a person who would not be raped, and now she had been raped in the place where she was meant to be safe, by the person who was meant to protect her. She felt the artifice of the last twenty years of her life, the pointlessness and futility of it. She might as well have taken the shortcut, worn the tarty top, flirted with the shady guy. She might as well have lived her life free.”

Rachel blames herself for Michael’s sexual assault; she rues the fact that she has exercised caution for her whole life to avoid being raped, only to be raped by a person she should have been able to trust. Rachel’s precautionary measures are relatable—women are socially expected to be on alert for men who might want to take advantage of them—but she misplaces the responsibility for the rape onto herself because of these victim-blaming expectations. Although Michael exhibited some red flags in their relationship, Rachel is not to blame for the rape: He, and he alone, is guilty.

“The house looks nothing like the house in the pop video. It is overgrown with creeping plants and the garden is full of rubble and the windows are grimy and covered in dirt.”

Twenty-six years after the Thomsen and Lamb children left the house on Cheyne Walk, it is derelict and overgrown. The state of the house symbolizes the state of the secrets it contains. The past has lain dormant for so many years, and the secrets of what happened in the house have been covered over by the children who escaped.

“It’s not like we don’t know about men like him. It’s not like there aren’t a thousand TV shows, a thousand novels, a thousand news stories every day about women being groomed and gaslighted by abusive men. Yet still, Dad, still.”

Rachel’s words reveal the blame she assigns herself for taking so long to see Michael’s true nature. They also show how easily a gaslighter can fool the most informed and aware person. Michael serves as an example and a warning to readers of what coercive control may look like in a relationship.

“I realize in some base way that this is me, this has always been me, but that I have sat on it, stifled it, trapped it in a cage, sedated it like a pet tiger, and it seems at this moment in time that the line between me killing someone and not killing someone has always been so much finer than I’d ever realized, and I want to stab someone through the heart and punch someone in the face. I want to do that. I really, really, want to do that.”

On the night Henry finds Phin, Jewell characterizes him as out of control and reckless. His usual ability to keep his dark side hidden is gone, and he seems likely to explode at any moment. Henry’s words in this quote suggest that he is violent and dangerous at his core.

“I look him in the eye. The dog returns my gaze. This dog appears to contain wisdom. In his eyes I see a story. He has lived some life and if he could talk, I think, he would tell me everything I needed to know.”

When Samuel sees Fitz, Lucy’s dog, he recognizes that the dog likely knows the answers to his questions—a whimsical thought, given that he cannot actually communicate with this animal. Samuel uses Fitz to catch Libby in a lie and to make the connection between Libby and her birth mother, Lucy Lamb. Samuel’s highly observant nature means he does not overlook the significance of even the smallest details, like the dog.

“This woman would not let that happen to her. This woman has never been violated like that. Her body never used as a piece of meat. And she knew that the only way she could persuade this woman that she had a good case to divorce this man was the throw the rape down on the table between them. But she could not. She simply could not.”

Rachel believes the rape is something she let happen to her, when in reality, only Michael is to blame. She compares herself to the strong, self-assured divorce lawyer and feels diminished in comparison. This comparison leads Rachel to keep the rape a secret, and she doesn’t speak of it to anyone—a damaging and traumatic type of secret-keeping that harms Rachel until she unburdens herself to Lucy.

“For a whole year Marco has had a place to be, a family, friends he can bring home, freedom to explore, regular meals, new clothes, warmth and shelter and security. And now, here, on this Chicago street, Marco discovers that his life is about to change yet again and it feels once more like a thing that teeters helplessly on a tightrope over a crevasse.”

This quote relates to the motif of the importance of home. Marco has lived in countless places, but Henry’s apartment is the first place that feels like home. The prospect of moving again is overwhelming. Marco’s thoughts show the importance of having a stable home, especially for a young person who needs safety and protection.

“‘Was he a poor Henry?’ I reply. ‘Yes,’ says Justin with feeling. ‘They all were. They were all victims. Whatever happened inside that house, none of them deserves to be punished for it. None of them.’”

From Justin’s point of view, the Lamb and Thomsen children were victims who, because of the trauma they endured, should not be held accountable for wrongs they might have done. This relates to the theme of Trauma and Moral Responsibility. Should Henry be prosecuted for killing Birdie? Were his actions self-defense from her abuse? Jewell leaves it to the reader to decide.

“She looked at herself on the video and saw a woman who was lost. She wondered what the hell she’d been looking for.”

When Rachel sees one of the blackmail videos that Michael sent her father, she hardly recognizes herself in it. Rachel has undergone a dramatic character transformation: She is no longer a searching, insecure woman. Despite her abusive relationship with Michael, Rachel is now strong and self-assured.

“Raped, Michael. Not abused. Fucking raped. And I did not go to the police because for so long I wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened, because if it had happened then that meant that I wasn’t me anymore, and more than anything I needed to be me. But now I know that the two things can both be true; it can be true that I married a man who violently raped me, and it can also be true that I am strong and special. Just like it was for Lucy.”

Rachel’s brave, direct confrontation of Michael provides further evidence of her character transformation. She hid the rape from friends, family, and police because she felt it was something she allowed to happen, and was partially responsible for. Now, however, she realizes that she bears no fault and being raped does not mean that she was weak or lesser than other women.

“Tears form in the back of her throat and threaten to spill down her cheeks. She chokes them back, compelled now, desperately compelled, to tell someone about this thing that happened to her when she was just a child, to throw it at someone, to hurl it hard, to make it land somewhere and for someone to see it, to recognize this thing that she has never told anyone about, not even Libby.”

For the first time, Lucy tells someone that Birdie groomed her for sex with David Thomsen, and that Birdie took Lucy’s baby and pretended it was hers. Lucy has harbored this secret her entire life, but finds release in telling Samuel. Jewell shows that sharing a secret can lead to personal healing; Lucy can move on from her traumatic past now that someone knows the truth of what happened to her.

“Lucy glances up at the man on the screen. He is staring at her, and where she expects to see dispassion, she sees great compassion. He is not out to get her. He’s just out to solve a puzzle. But still, she thinks, still, if in order to solve his puzzle he unlocks too much of her, follows her too far down this path, who knows where it will end up? It could, she realizes with a cold shudder of dread, end up in the basement of Michael’s house in Antibes, and then she would lose everything. Absolutely everything.”

After Samuel listens to Lucy’s testimony, his face shows compassion. Samuel has the difficult job of solving a case that should perhaps remain unsolved. The more he and the reader learn about Birdie, the less her killer seems to deserve punishment; however, Samuel also has a professional duty to uncover the truth. This quote also highlights the tension Jewell creates as Lucy worries about getting caught for a crime she committed in the past. Jewell waits to unveil the specifics of Lucy’s crime to heighten mystery and suspense.

“Very soon, I hope, we will be able to put away these files and these papers, put away the world that the bag of bones found by Jason the mudlarker on the banks of the Thames two weeks ago has built inside my head, the world that fills my quiet moments and my sleep and all the gaps in between, the world of abuse and darkness and wealth, this world that spewed four vulnerable children out onto the streets and left them to fend for themselves.”

Samuel takes his work as a detective seriously. He is impacted by this case on a personal level as it fills his thoughts outside of work hours. Jewell characterizes Samuel as compassionate and committed to the people he meets in the course of his job. He does not rest until the truth is brought to the surface.

“Samuel looks at me and even from all these thousands of miles away, even on a screen, I can see the hot burn of human understanding in his eyes and I know that he could read me, every inch of me, every atom, if I let him. But he underestimates me. I have spent my whole life finding ways to tamp down my body language, to hide the truth of who I am and what I am. He will get nothing from me. Nothing.”

Henry’s thoughts highlight both Samuel’s excellent observation skills and Henry’s twisted personality. Henry knows how to conceal his darker impulses; his diction—including the phrase “what I am,” which positions Henry as something other than human—suggests that he knows he isn’t totally normal and that it would be dangerous for Samuel to see this aspect of his identity.

“Back on the street I turn on my phone. I pause for a moment. I can feel a thrum of tears at the base of my throat. I can feel a restlessness, a need for something, but this time it is not a need for oblivion; it is quite the opposite. It is a need for a hug from my sister. To be with my family. To be safe.”

Shortly after exhibiting signs of his disturbed personality, Henry shows his humanity and sensitivity. He longs to be with family, showing his need for love and relationship. Jewell creates a complex character in Henry, simultaneously experiencing mental instability and relatable.

“When I get back to London, I will reclaim my identity. I will reclaim Henry Lamb. I will own the little boy who I last saw looking at me in a mirror in a Chelsea town house all those years ago. I have no reason to pretend not to be him anymore. No reason whatsoever.”

At last, Henry realizes he doesn’t need to impersonate Phin and embraces his own identity. However, Henry’s new self-acceptance fades fairly quickly; in the Epilogue, Henry finds a new obsession: Kris Doll. Although Henry seems to find some healing from the past, his tendency toward fixation remains. This portrayal is realistic—not everyone can get over extreme trauma after one conversation, no matter how productive or healing.

“Because there is something still niggling and nagging at me and that thing is Henry Lamb. He is more than just a damaged child. There is something else about him, something twisted. Something wrong.”

Samuel’s insight into Henry characterizes Samuel as an astute judge of character—his recognition that something is “wrong” about Henry confirms that although he hides it well, Henry isn’t quite ordinary. As Jewell plays with the reader’s perceptions of Henry, this quote serves to show an impression of Henry from another character’s perspective.

“I am home, she thinks, I am in clean pajamas in a big, soft bed in a luxury apartment block in central London. But I will never ever feel safe, not until I know that the French police are not still looking for me.”

Lucy’s constant worry that police will discover her crime in Antibes serves to maintain tension in the novel. Jewell highlights Lucy’s anxiety repeatedly before unveiling Lucy’s crime: killing Michael. This adds suspense to the plot and makes the reader question whether Lucy will—or should be—held responsible for Michael’s death.

“Why not, I think, why ever not? And immediately the nuts and bolts of the story shift and fall into new places in my head and within moments I have recalibrated everything, the whole fucking thing, and I did not kill Birdie, but I might have moved her bones, and really, would that be such a crime, to protect a man like Justin? A fine man. Really?”

Upon reading Justin’s suicide note, Henry allows Justin’s lies about the past to replace his knowledge of the truth about what happened. Elsewhere, he admits that he did the same thing with his parent’s deaths—allowed the suicide pact theory to override the real narrative of events. Henry’s ability to mentally “recalibrate” the truth suggests sociopathic tendencies.

“For a long moment Detective Owusu stares at me. I see what is in his eyes: the truth. He knows that Justin’s suicide note is a fiction. He knows that my years are theatrical. He knows that I killed Birdie. And he knows that I know he knows.”

Jewell reveals that Samuel knows Henry is lying, yet he chooses not to press further. Samuel is at peace with knowing the truth, but content to allow Henry to go free. Samuel’s awareness of Henry’s traumatic childhood keeps him from attempting to charge Henry with Birdie’s murder, demonstrating his understanding that moral justice and legal justice are not always the same thing.

“Her first home. Her babies. All in one place. Finally. She turns the key in the door and feels a shiver of pleasure as the door opens under her hand—each time she’s seen the house before it’s been the estate agent’s hand on the keys, pushing open the door—and then they are inside the house and although it is scruffy, broken, badly modernized, and falling apart, it fills her heart in a way that is beyond anything she ever experienced before.”

Lucy’s feelings when she gets the keys to her house relate to the Importance of Home motif. Moving into her house—despite its imperfections—signals a happy ending for Lucy and her children. She is finally safe and can stop running from the past, settling in a safe and secure place.