Fellowship Point

“[Dick had] lived a life of the mind. Though he was often at home, Polly had to plot to get his attention, but she chose to be cheerful rather than bitter about it. She’d wanted more, so much more, all that was possible between two people, but her galaxy of what could be ended up as a constellation of bright moments when they’d been intimate.”

This passage reveals that Dick doesn’t regard Polly as an equal and a partner but as secondary, as a helpmate. Polly enters marriage expecting to enjoy an exchange of ideas and feelings, but when her marriage doesn’t pan out that way, she lowers her expectations. Polly insists that she’s content with this compromise.

“[Agnes] could never live the lives her friends did, propping up silly men and caring about propriety and breaches of etiquette. Elspeth, too, had managed to escape Grace Lee’s Victorian hopes for her daughters by acting so much like a nun it wasn’t possible to conceive of her being with a man. So the Lee girls were to be spinsters. Free of men in close quarters.”

Reflecting with the theme of Women’s Opportunities and Choices, Agnes displays how she defies social norms by refusing to marry and birth children. She recognizes that not only do her life choices violate these norms, but they also violate her mother’s expectations and wishes. Agnes is unapologetic for this, however, and confidently lives the life she has chosen for herself as an author.

“James had once again made his position clear in his letters to Polly, saying he was trusting her to be loyal. She was always loyal—but how to choose between the entities that deserved her allegiance?”

Polly is caught between two competing forces: her best friend and her son. She wants desperately to appease them both but knows that regarding the land trust, this isn’t possible. As the novel unfolds, Polly learns how to stand up to her sons and assert her own wishes. This quote demonstrates the theme of Women’s Opportunities and Choices.

“‘You’ll see,’ [Polly] told [Dick]. ‘We aren’t alone anymore.’

‘But I’ll always come first,’ he said.

She should have heard in that remark a howl of storms on the way, but she only said, ‘Of course.’”

When Polly conceives her first child, Dick’s response clarifies his expectation that he’ll remain Polly’s first priority. This speaks to the selfish way in which he views her: not as an equal partner but as subservient to him. Polly recognizes this more fully in retrospect.

“If [Polly] had a daughter, it would be different. A daughter would stitch her into a long line of women who had quietly made the world beautiful, stretching back to Eve. A daughter would make fresh stitches.”

Although Polly loves her sons, she feels incomplete and alone. She’s certain that a daughter would bring about the connection and intimacy she has longed for. Indeed, this appears true when Lydia is born. However, Lydia dies suddenly at age nine, and Polly mourns this loss for the rest of her life.

“An unexpected feeling developed as Polly got to know the tiny infant. She adored him in a way she’d never adored anything before. Here was her own child, her true love. She felt no guilt about this deep affinity. She loved James and Knox unconditionally. It was just that Theo and she knew each other, so well that their intimacy embodied a paradox—they constantly surprised each other.”

With each of her children’s births, Polly hopes to establish the kind of emotional intimacy she lacks in her relationship with Dick. She comes the closest to achieving this with Theo; even into his adulthood, he defends her when her other sons believe that they know what’s best for her.

“For once Dick’s nearness was unwelcome. [Polly] had a soulmate, and that gave her the wherewithal to see that Dick wasn’t one, after all, and that he was gearing up to belittle her with skepticism and disdain. There it was, configuring his face, bent on rendering her whole experience inconsequential. This had happened many times, she realized now, but she scrambled so hard to be close to him that she’d never seen it clearly. He was small and petty. Just as Agnes said.”

Polly’s feelings toward Dick fluctuate throughout the novel. When she experiences an emotional closeness to her young son, she realizes that she doesn’t have the same kind of closeness, after all, with Dick. For the first time, she regards him more objectively, recognizing his faults.

“For the first time since [Polly had] known [Dick] they were developing an intimacy beyond the physical. He was agitated and sometimes incontinent, but he was opening like a bud, and she was there to see it in slow motion. A fresh chance, a new freedom—how true it was that one should never give up.”

Ironically, as Dick ages and begins to experience dementia, he becomes more the person Polly has always hoped he would be. He lets down his guard and shares with Polly the personal details that she has always longed to hear. Polly relishes these times, certain that he has finally evolved into the companion she knew he was all along.

“[Dick] was the fulfillment of a central wish. It wasn’t exactly the same for him. He blinked at [Polly] when she entered a room, as if she were someone half-forgotten whose name had slipped his mind. He seemed surprised and confused by her, and she knew it was because he didn’t feel the need to figure her out, as she did him. She made a point of finding her own happiness. His moods, once she learned them, could be shifted by her subtle adjustments. She could make him happy. There was nothing in the world she wanted to do more than to give him the feeling that he had a happy life.”

In the early days of their marriage, Polly is enamored with Dick. She dotes on him but quickly realizes that he doesn’t regard her with the same importance. He regards her as a helpmate and domestic aide who frees him to follow his career and intellectual pursuits. Despite not having the kind of emotional intimacy she longs for with Dick, Polly convinces herself that she’s content with their marriage.

“There was nothing to replace an old friend who knew everything, who’d spent enough time in the childhood home to know the atmosphere and how emotions and silence transpired—to know how the other had really grown up. Polly felt the power of this truth as she sat in this room that she knew before she had language, with this person with whom she was a friend before friendship even began.”

This quote speaks directly to the theme of The Power of Friendship. The bond between Agnes and Polly is strong, in large part because they’ve been lifelong friends. They know each other so well that each anticipates how the other will think, feel, and respond. No one else, not even Polly’s family members, can match this bond.

“‘Oh lord—I hope Maud’s all right,’ Agnes said. She looked over at Polly.

‘She is,’ Polly said quickly. ‘I’m sure she is.’

Agnes’s heart pounded. ‘You really think so?’

‘Yes. Wouldn’t we sense it if she weren’t?’

They looked at each other and their eyes widened. They hadn’t sensed it years ago, when Lydia died, and then Nan.”

In keeping with the theme of Aging and Death, the deaths of loved ones surround Polly and Agnes, and they fear for Maud’s safety in New York on the day of the 9/11 attacks. The thought that she may be in danger instantly reminds them of the losses of both Lydia and Nan, which came about unexpectedly.

“‘You know, I think I’m beginning to understand. It’s not so much that you want to preserve the Sank. You want to keep the Point away from my children. I don’t know why, but’—a light came into her face—‘but I do. It’s the thought I have never allowed myself to have. You’re jealous of me, Agnes.’”

As Agnes and Polly’s disagreement escalates into a heated fight, Polly launches accusations against Agnes. Whether it’s true that Agnes wishes to have had the life Polly has, with a marriage and children, is up for interpretation. Regardless, this fight causes Agnes and Polly to remain silent for months.

“What a sight to see she is. What a presence, in all her robust vigor, this golden morning! Before we knew her name, Polly and I called her Very Very, because she’s very very so many qualities—intrepid, solitary, vivid, energetic, darling. And tough.”

Agnes speaks here of Nan, explaining her characteristics to Elspeth. Her free-spirited wildness is what Agnes admires, so much so that though she works to instill some sociable traits in Nan, Agnes is careful to preserve the unfettered unique qualities that make Nan who she is. These are qualities that Agnes later captures in the When Nan books.

“I raced, stomach bouncing against my ribs, propelled by the thought that I can’t survive another death, I simply cannot. I didn’t know that before today, but it was so apparent and true that I felt a literal blow when I realized it.”

When Nan is injured by a headstone in the cemetery, Agnes fears the child’s death. In this moment, she recognizes how important Nan has become to her. Agnes’s belief that she can’t face another death demonstrates how strongly the loss of important people in her life has affected her.

“I know people wonder if Daddy’s attention, the way he treated us as interesting, had something to do with why neither you nor I married. It’s a funny speculation, isn’t it? That our minds may have been too well respected by a man? The intelligent bluestockings we had as teachers were marvelous, but not meant to set examples for our futures. Grace fully expected us to marry powerful men and be good partners to them. We might well have interests, even work of our own, but the strong message sent to us was that we didn’t want to end up as spinsters. Yet both of us did. We each had chances to marry, but one cannot marry simply for the sake of marriage. Or we couldn’t.”

In one of her letters to her deceased sister, Elspeth, Agnes directly addresses the theme of Women’s Opportunities and Choices, musing on the unconventional ways that their father encouraged her and Elspeth. Agnes suspects this was instrumental in the paths she and Elspeth took, in which they refused to defer to convention: Elspeth by pursuing a religious life and Agnes by being independent and remaining unmarried. Agnes knows her choice was not only socially defiant but a violation of the kind of life her mother envisioned for her.

“I’m determined not to teach [Nan] to fear everything, as we were taught, or that manners are preferable to feelings. I honestly don’t yet know what free is, but I know what it isn’t.”

Agnes recognizes how her own mother pushed her and her sister to adhere to social norms and fulfill traditional gender roles and expectations. In keeping with the theme of Women’s Opportunities and Choices, Agnes wants the opposite for young Nan: She actively encourages Nan to express her wild and unkempt self, celebrating the girl’s unfettered spirit.

“[Virgil] had the kind of literary conversations and friendships and guidance that are available to men. Of course, the lack gives women the opportunity to be subversive in ways men can’t, because they are too busy seeking a spot on the team and each other’s admiration. But the opportunities and the possibilities and the unloneliness of it all are taken for granted by a young man like Virgil Reed, whereas they seem like a foreign country to me. Normally I don’t think about it—it is ingrained in me not to stew about things I can’t change—but reading of his woes illuminated my own very different and dimly lit path, and I wondered how I’d have done if I’d been him.”

The theme of Women’s Opportunities and Choices again manifests as Agnes considers how Virgil had opportunities that she didn’t. She suspects that Virgil took his opportunity to attend graduate school for granted. As she considers this, Agnes briefly feels jealous, coveting the environment in which Virgil was immersed, believing herself well-suited to have done the same were she not a woman.

“Could I live that way, though? Honestly, I don’t know. Would he do the same for me, or would any man? I’d never seen it. Do women not ask, or is the notion of the helpmate so ingrained that we all believe support travels in one direction only? Why wouldn’t women want the same, and why wouldn’t men realize that? I would want equality if I were in a relationship.”

Agnes recounts to Elspeth an instance in which she shored up Virgil’s self-esteem by praising his abilities as a writer. She muses on the notion of marriage, unsure whether she could marry even someone like Virgil, with whom she feels a kinship. She’s certain that because of the way men are socialized, even he would expect her to help him achieve his endeavors rather than be an equal.

“Why come over so often and ask me for so much help if it weren’t to secure a future for us? Am I only a handmaiden to his work? Does he believe I gave and gave because I am good and wanted nothing for myself? I wanted everything for myself. I am not you, not selfless. I want. I want Nan officially. And maybe another; I still bleed; I’m not too old. I have thought of it.”

In a letter to Elspeth, Agnes emotionally releases her frustrations about her relationship with Virgil. She’s both puzzled and angered that he doesn’t seem to view her as an intellectual equal or even as a lover. Significantly, she confesses to desiring a sexual life as well as children, things she adamantly insists to others, like Polly, that she neither wants nor needs.

“‘I realize what you’ve meant when you’ve been talking about feminism all these years.’ Polly glanced over to see the impression this made. It could have gone in many directions. But Agnes looked interested.

‘It means I can make choices. That’s the short of it.’

‘Profound, though, Pol. I agree with you. Choice implies self-knowledge, self-acceptance, responsibility…’

‘And independence. I never had that. Now I am getting an inkling, and I wish I could go back and be more independent.’

‘You can, in your mind. That’s a choice, as well.’”

Dick’s death compels Polly to reflect on her role in the relationship, recognizing for the first time how limiting the dynamic was for her. She feels empowered that she can now choose to be whomever she wishes, which emphasizes the theme of Women’s Opportunities and Choices. Significantly, she confides in Agnes, her best friend, underscoring another theme, The Power of Friendship.

“Maud imagined she could see energy pulsing in the air between Heidi and Robert. Were they in love? No it wasn’t that. Heidi could barely speak. What was it, then? Was friendship a big enough container? Polly said they were soulmates from way back. Maud had never liked that term, mostly because she had never felt it herself—true love.”

Heidi (Nan) and Robert are another pair who display the theme of The Power of Friendship. Having bonded as children, Maud senses that their friendship might be renewed now that they’re adults and Heidi has returned to the Point. Her comment about soulmates counters Polly’s belief. However, the novel suggests that two individuals needn’t be romantically involved to experience such a bond.

“[Agnes] wished she had the faith to believe that after death she’d see the people she loved again, but she’d never been able to muster than fantasy.”

Unlike Elspeth, Agnes isn’t religious. She doesn’t believe in an afterlife in which the deceased reunite. Instead, she remains close to her lost loved ones by thinking of them often, by recalling memories, by imagining what they might say or do in certain situations, and, in Elspeth’s case, by writing letters.

“They belonged here. Of course. It was obvious. They belonged here and they should be here. Why not? Why on earth not? Why should she and Polly leave the Point to a land trust rather than to the people who had loved it the longest? Her heart pounded. It had taken her her whole life to see it, but now that she did, nothing could be as clear. The simple truths are always hidden in plain sight, only veiled by the complications of the human mind. Mary belonged here.”

Although Agnes strives to establish a land trust on Fellowship Point throughout the novel, in the end she changes her mind. Her insistence in this passage suggests that she plans to leave the status quo in place so that Polly’s children and other descendants can enjoy it. Later, however, it becomes clear that the “they” Agnes is thinking of are the Wabanaki people.