“Not long ago, when I was locked in a car with my grandparents for six days, I told them the story of Phoebe, and when I finished telling them—or maybe even as I was telling them—I realized that the story of Phoebe was like the plaster wall in our old house in Bybanks, Kentucky.”

The above passage encapsulates both the symbolism of the plaster wall and its relationship to the broader theme of storytelling. The plaster wall Sal is referring to turns out to have been built over a fireplace. Similarly, Sal says, the story she tells about Phoebe and Mrs. Winterbottom turns out to be a story about her relationship to her own mother; as Sal talks, she increasingly comes to understand her mother’s reasons for leaving in terms of Mrs. Winterbottom’s, while also noticing aspects of her own denial in Phoebe’s response to her mother’s disappearance. The idea that stories can help people better understand their own feelings and experiences—particularly when they themselves retell those stories in ways that are personally relevant—is central to the novel.

“Most of the time, my mother seemed nothing like her parents at all, and it was hard for me to imagine that she had come from them. But occasionally, in small, unexpected moments, the corners of my mother’s mouth would turn down and she’d say, ‘Really? Is that so?’ And sound exactly like a Pickford.” 

Because her death predates the novel’s events, Sugar remains one of the novel’s more enigmatic characters. However, Sal’s account of her mother’s relationship to her identity as a “Pickford Hiddle” provides some insight into both her hopes and fears. Sugar rejects the cautious reserve of her birth family, choosing instead to embrace the more open, spontaneous, and optimistic lifestyle of the Hiddle family. Nevertheless, as Sal here notes, Sugar had an underlying tendency toward her parents’ more guarded ways of thinking and acting.