The Good Girl

“Who is this limp woman before me, I wonder, recognizing the face but having no knowledge of the body language or tone of voice or the disturbing silence that encompasses her like a bubble.”

Eve speaks here about the change she has seen in her daughter since her return from the cabin. Mia has become limp, distant, and impossible to reach. Eve grieves her daughter, despite having her at home—though Mia isn’t dead, a part of her missing that doesn’t want to return.

“Oftentimes, Mrs. Dennett, children create imaginary friends to compensate for loneliness or a lack of real friends in their lives.”

Dr. Rhodes speaks to Eve on the phone after Eve discovers the meaning behind Mia’s false name. Dr. Rhodes’ analysis foreshadows the loneliness and neglect of Mia’s childhood. What appears to be a wealthy and loving family is in fact a family suffering from decades of emotional abuse. 

“We found a Christmas tree. Charming really, if you ask me.”

Detective Hoffman explains the Christmas tree that was found in the cabin when Mia was rescued. This image is eerie in this scene, because it contradicts the narrative of Mia’s capture. A prison is not a place for a Christmas tree, which foreshadows the complicated nature of Mia’s relationship with Colin.

“Mia never used to be afraid. She would wander city streets well after dark and feel perfectly safe. She confides that she often found solace in deafening traffic, obtrusive car horns and sirens that blared at all times of the night. But now the sound of a frying pan rattles her nerves.”

Eve thinks about her daughter’s former and current selves, comparing Mia before and after trauma. Before, Mia was brave and resilient. Now, she is frightened by common noises. This is another scene that highlights Mia’s loss of identity and Eve’s grief. 

She’s a pawn, a puppet, a sacrificial lamb.”

Colin talks about Mia. By calling her these names, he takes away her agency. She is not a woman with a meaningful life but a puppet in the hands of powerful men. His narrative of Mia’s life, however, is wrong.

“They look like schoolboys to me, younger than my own children, but they carry guns and nightsticks and peer up at me with binoculars and just stare.”

Eve watches the police stationed outside her home. She thinks about their immaturity and the power they wield with their badges and guns. This scene foreshadows the police violence that ends the novel.

“I’m reminded of my daughter’s dissolution with every breath I take. When I see mothers holding their children’s hands. When I see children climbing onto the school bus. When I see postings of missing cats taped to the street posts, or hear a mother call her child by name.”

Eve’s grief is the focus of this passage. She grieves her daughter and refers to Mia’s dissolution, as if she literally disappeared into thin air. Eve’s grief is the root of her healing because it forces her to reflect on her behavior as a mother. 

“I’m not one to feel guilt, but I know that I’m the one who did it to her, out there, in the woods, when she tried to run. I tell myself that she asked for it. I tell myself that at least now she’s quiet, not so certain anymore. Now she knows who’s in charge. Me.”

Colin’s fight against his own violent tendencies is clear in this passage, as he thinks about the power he wields over Mia. He feels guilty because of her wounds but also knows that he acted out of desperation. He blames Mia to avoid blaming himself. 

“We’re lost in an uninhabited world surrounded by nothing but wilderness.”

Colin thinks about the loneliness of his time with Mia in the cabin. This passage calls back the imagery of the North Star, which guides lost travelers. Though this quote speaks to the desperation of their situation, it also reflects the beauty of the cabin and the home they create.

“Image meant everything to James. It always had.”

Eve thinks about her husband’s character flaws and reflects them back to Gabe. She is disgusted by her husband’s selfishness. He is driven by how others perceive him—his need to be admired is the driving force behind the entire novel.

“I tell her this and then I say, ‘Once you get into this kind of mess, there’s no getting out.’”

Colin explains his life of crime to Mia. He talks about the cycle of violence that he has experienced for his entire life—the cycles of poverty, hunger, homelessness, and crime that led him to the cabin.

“But with every dollar I earned was also the knowledge that I belonged to someone other than me.”

Colin thinks about his lack of agency. Since committing petty crimes, he lost his sense of self. He not only stopped living by his values, he lost control over his freedom and his ability to choose. Though the money was important to him, it didn’t make up for the sacrifice of his life.

“The ducks and geese fly overhead. Everyone is leaving me.”

Eve stares out the window at the hibernating birds. Winter is coming. She is grieving and deeply lonely. The hibernating animals in this passage symbolize the shift in Eve’s emotional and physical landscape.

“He doesn’t look that different than me. Just your typical bundle of baby fat, turned football jock, turned America’s Most Wanted.”

Gabe looks at baby pictures of Colin in his mother’s home. He thinks about how Colin looks like him as a child. Gabe reflects on the ways that criminals are not unlike other people—they are often victims of circumstance, not moral degenerates.

“‘The difference between you and me,’ I tell her, ‘is that I grew up with nothing. I didn’t hope for more. I knew I wouldn’t get it.’”

Colin talks about his hopelessness as a child. This came from the cycles of poverty and the trauma of being raised in an abusive home. Living in this environment made Colin hopeless; he couldn’t imagine a future for himself beyond what he’d always known.

“She gets bits and pieces, but never the whole thing. We’ve all been there. In a dream, your house is a house but it’s not your house. Some lady doesn’t look like your mother, but you know that she is your mother.”

Gabe watches Mia try to regain her memory. He sympathizes with her, thinking about his own dreams and how they came in snippets. They often didn’t make sense upon waking. The fragments of Mia’s memory are representative of the fragmented nature of the entire novel. 

“‘What did you want?’ she asks. What I wanted was a dad. Someone to take care of my mother and me, so I didn’t have to do it myself. But what I tell her is Atari.”

Mia asks Colin what he wanted for Christmas as a child, and he lies to her because he thinks she’ll understand materialism better. What he actually wanted was stability; he wanted to be a child instead of being forced to play the role of an adult. 

“This is how we annul the violence and the hate of our first days and weeks in the cabin, inside the log walls that have now become our home.”

Colin and Mia forgive each other for their initial murderous intentions. By acknowledging their violence and the ways they endangered each other, they can heal from their past pains and move toward love. 

“I was jealous of her, really. Jealous that she was dead, jealous that somewhere, out there, someone loved her more than they loved me.”

Mia talks to Colin about her namesake, Chloe, the name of a deceased girl who was beloved and missed by her family. As a child, Mia named her imaginary friend Chloe, which speaks to the loneliness and neglect that marked Mia’s childhood.

“Even more than me, he’s a guy led into the line of duty by the prospect of carrying a gun.”

Gabe worries about the immaturity of the police officers in Grand Marais. He is right to worry—this scene foreshadows Colin’s death. Gabe thinks about the power that comes from holding and shooting a gun. It drew him in when he was younger—now it disgusts him.

“I remember that first night in the cabin. I remember the fear in her eyes. We Were Here, I think, but it’s someone else who leaves.”

Colin thinks about the change that has come after months in the cabin. The frightened, violent, traumatized people who entered that space are not the people who leave now. He records their time on the kitchen counter as a memento of their love.

“She’s a ghost, a phantom, with an empty expression on her face; the lights are on but no one’s home.”

Here, the novel circles back to Mia’s loss of identity. It was not Colin’s violence that caused her trauma but rather the violence of police who killed the man she loves. Gabe uses words like “phantom” to describe Mia’s emptiness and the loss of self that came after Colin’s death.

“Who am I to talk, I think as I slide between the sheets. I don’t know a damn thing about being in love.”

Gabe thinks about love, as his burgeoning romance with Eve deepens into something more meaningful. Though he initially questioned Mia’s ability to love Colin, he recognizes that he has no right to doubt her love. In this moment, he speaks against the patriarchal view of many other characters, who mock or stigmatize Mia’s love for Colin.