Sandra (William’s Mother) Character Analysis

An itinerant dad, home for him was a stop on his way somewhere else, working toward a goal that was unclear. […] It was as though he lived in a state of constant aspiration: getting there, wherever it was, wasn’t the important thing: it was the battle, and the battle after that, and the war was never ending.

At home, the magic of his absence yielded to the ordinariness of his presence. He drank a bit. He didn’t become angry, but frustrated and lost, as though he had fallen into a hole. On those first nights home his eyes were so bright you would swear they glowed in the dark, but then after a few days his eyes became weary. He began to seem out of his element and he suffered for it.

Simply by being who he was—no more, no less—my father was winning my mother’s heart.

They fell into a kiss.

My father cleaned this mess up every morning and every evening. He did it until the cages shone, until you could have eaten a meal off the surface of the floor, so spotless and clean had he left it.

“This is the girdle I’ve been waiting for all my life! And to think that you—you—I’ve been so unfair! Can you ever forgive me?”

However, the big black Helldog was aggravated. Edward had rudely come between him and a meal.

While my mother took care of the day-to-day things, he brought vision to the task. He made a list of the virtues he possessed and wanted to pass on to me: perseverance, ambition, personality, optimism, strength, intelligence, imagination.

The very idea of coming home at the same time every single day made him nauseated. Regardless of how much he loved his wife, his son, he could only stand so much love. […] He needed a break.

He made me laugh.

The swamp stops growing after a certain point, when the house is surrounded on all sides by yards of deep, dark, mossy water. And my father returns, finally, and sees what has happened, but by this time the swamp is too deep, the house too far away, and though he sees her glowing there he can’t have her, and so he has to come back to us.

An itinerant dad, home for him was a stop on his way somewhere else, working toward a goal that was unclear. […] It was as though he lived in a state of constant aspiration: getting there, wherever it was, wasn’t the important thing: it was the battle, and the battle after that, and the war was never ending.

At home, the magic of his absence yielded to the ordinariness of his presence. He drank a bit. He didn’t become angry, but frustrated and lost, as though he had fallen into a hole. On those first nights home his eyes were so bright you would swear they glowed in the dark, but then after a few days his eyes became weary. He began to seem out of his element and he suffered for it.

Simply by being who he was—no more, no less—my father was winning my mother’s heart.

They fell into a kiss.

My father cleaned this mess up every morning and every evening. He did it until the cages shone, until you could have eaten a meal off the surface of the floor, so spotless and clean had he left it.

“This is the girdle I’ve been waiting for all my life! And to think that you—you—I’ve been so unfair! Can you ever forgive me?”

However, the big black Helldog was aggravated. Edward had rudely come between him and a meal.

While my mother took care of the day-to-day things, he brought vision to the task. He made a list of the virtues he possessed and wanted to pass on to me: perseverance, ambition, personality, optimism, strength, intelligence, imagination.

The very idea of coming home at the same time every single day made him nauseated. Regardless of how much he loved his wife, his son, he could only stand so much love. […] He needed a break.

He made me laugh.

The swamp stops growing after a certain point, when the house is surrounded on all sides by yards of deep, dark, mossy water. And my father returns, finally, and sees what has happened, but by this time the swamp is too deep, the house too far away, and though he sees her glowing there he can’t have her, and so he has to come back to us.