A Town Called Solace

“It was fancy and had what looked like wings at the back and it was light blue. At another time, a safe time, Clara might have liked it, but this wasn’t a safe time and she wanted everything to be exactly as it had always been.”

Clara watches Liam arrive at Mrs. Orchard’s house with some trepidation. Her reflection that she might have liked the car at a “safe time” signals that Clara feels extremely unsettled by both Rose’s disappearance and Mrs. Orchard’s continuing absence. Clara’s longing for order and comfort introduces The Search for Solace and Understanding she will undergo in the novel.

“She’d expected Mrs Orchard to be more reliable, and was disappointed in her. Adults in general were less reliable than they should be, in Clara’s opinion, but she’d thought Mrs Orchard was an exception.”

Clara reflects on how disappointed she is that Mrs. Orchard did not keep her word and return quickly. Clara is learning that the adults around her cannot be trusted absolutely and that life is not always as predictable as she wants it to be. Like the other two protagonists in the novel, Clara will soon have to face the necessity of Confronting and Overcoming Challenges.

“I enjoy our conversations very much, you never know where they’re going to end up. She doesn’t make my heart lift the way Liam did, but no other child has ever done that.”

Mrs. Orchard’s reflections on Clara and Liam reflect The Complexities of Relationships. Mrs. Orchard’s deep affection for Liam was so intense because, as is foreshadowed here, she became unhealthily attached to him while grieving her inability to have children. The fact that she did not form as intense an attachment to Clara is thus a positive sign of her better sense of boundaries with other people’s children.