The House We Grew Up In

Bit by bit, Lorelei is beginning to address her hoarding problem because she finally sees how it drove her loved ones away, and she has stopped people from being their true selves. In another instance of Clarity Gained from Different Viewpoints, she realizes that Colin has completely different taste from her after he moves out. He prefers mass-produced furniture, whereas for her, objects have a history and almost metaphysical presence, carrying the history of their owners. This explains why she can’t throw anything away, but also why she kept Rhys’s room exactly the same; by maintaining his room as a shrine, she can keep him present in her life. With this, her hoarding proves to be a mechanism for her grief, but it is spiraling out of her control; she can’t access vital spaces in her home, and she spends her money on things that give her pleasure rather than food.

Lorelei’s romantic relationships are another type of addiction in the text; as Colin tells Meg, she “always did need to have someone madly in love with her. Like a drug” (349). Addictions are compulsive and chronic dependencies on substances or activities, and addictive behaviors are often uncontrollable, like any illness. Addictions also emerge as coping mechanisms, and other Bird family members exhibit addictions. Colin is addicted to tattoos, Rory uses drugs, Jim has an alcohol addiction, and Beth develops a pattern of drinking heavily and promiscuity. This excessiveness, like Lorelei’s hoarding, becomes a way for characters to express their individuality as well as outward manifestations of their inner struggles.

On the surface, the family is no longer together, highlighting the theme of Family Ties and the Cyclical Nature of Trauma. Lorelei bemoans how they were once so close but are now “[s]cattered across the globe. Nothing to link us together” (301). Her children have become “untethered,” a process that was “inevitable” even before Rhys’s death due to their individual desires to escape their family home. Each family member’s setting plays its own role and characterizes its inhabitant, much like Lorelei’s house. As aforementioned, Meg lives in a sterile, minimalist home with her four children and stays closest to home, the only child remaining in England. This casts her as Lorelei’s direct foil; they inhabit the same country and have the same number of children, but Meg uses her environment to do things right, purposefully setting herself apart from her mother, whom she views as self-absorbed. Estranged from each other after Vicky’s disastrous funeral, Beth builds an artificial life in Australia, trying to manufacture her own model of responsibility. Rory lives a ramshackle, dangerous life in Thailand selling drugs, which becomes more desolate when he is incarcerated. Colin bounces between his children, eventually taking up Rory’s old role as Kayleigh’s partner and Tia’s father in Spain on the commune. Each setting is distinct, representing the ways each family member tries to move on from their trauma, but escape is not enough to change their outcomes. After Lorelei’s death, they are all drawn away from their foreign refuges and back to the Bird family home, underlining the fact that they all must confront their past traumas to meaningfully change and move into the future.

The fateful Easter Sunday of 1991 still holds the family in thrall, yet there are seeds of change. The family members do keep in contact with each other, even if this is only possible over the Internet. New and unconventional relationships are formed; Molly describes her grandfather living with his son’s ex “like one of those ‘True Life’ stories in those trashy magazines at the dentist” (302), but this doesn’t have the same effect on her as it did on her mother and aunt. While she thinks it is strange, she also accepts it, giving a glimpse at a path forward for the family. As Lorelei begins to lose her hold over everyone, the younger generation begins to create different and less damaged ties with one another. The cousins are excited to see and meet each other. Meg says Tia is “just one piece of the puzzle. One tiny piece” (355). The fact that she looks like Rory underlines the deep roots of an extended family and hints at possible resolutions in the final chapters.