Stillhouse Lake

“She’d always imagined their house as being so firm, so solid, so normal. The vomited pile of bricks and broken Sheetrock looked obscene. It looked vulnerable. […] Her home always seemed so safe to her, such a fortress, and now it was breached. Security had proved a lie, no stronger than bricks and wood and drywall.”

This quote introduces houses as symbols for Gwen’s family, as well as for their safety and well-being. When a car crashes into their garage, which served as Mel’s workshop, this destroys their physical home as well as Gwen’s previous conception of her family as a happy, safe group of people who were close to each other. Seeing a woman her husband murdered in the garage, Gwen’s illusions are shattered, and going forward, her family will never be the same; nor will her concept of “home.” 

“I’ve changed vehicles frequently over the past few years, from necessity, but this one…I love this one. I bought it cheap for cash on Craigslist, a quick and anonymous purchase, and it’s just the right thing for the steep, woody terrain around the lake, and the hills that stretch up toward misty blue mountains.

The symbolism isn’t lost on me.”

In addition to switching identities and houses, Gwen switches cars, and her current Jeep symbolizes the current iteration of her personality. Four years after “The Event,” Gwen is now better equipped for survival. Although she has a tendency to think that each new identity indicates a “shedding” or narrowing down of the self, the Jeep’s endurance and refusal to be discarded suggests that Gwen is finally coming into a more permanent identity.

“Gwen Proctor is the fourth identity I’ve had since leaving Wichita. Gina Royal lies dead in the past; I’m not that woman anymore. In fact, I can hardly recognize her now, that weak creature who’d submitted, pretended, smoothed over every ripple of trouble that rose.

Who’d aided and abetted, however unconsciously.”

Although Gwen was not an accomplice or accessory and genuinely didn’t know her husband was a serial killer, she still struggles with guilt, mostly because she now believes she “should have” known and could have saved some lives if she found out earlier.