Pretty Girls

Sam’s letters deviate from discussing past events and old memories to talking about comforting alternate realities. For example, in his final letter, Sam describes Julia’s “phantom wedding day,” where she is “suddenly [...] a grown-up beautiful woman” whom he gives away at the altar (573). These imaginary fantasies are comforting because they are situated in the same past that Sam refuses to leave. He prefers to think of Julia in impossible realities because it is easier than attempting to mend his other familial relationships, which have weakened under the sad truth of her death.

Of course, Sam has been dead several years by this time, but his reluctance to acknowledge the living emphasizes how detached he has become from his family. Fantasizing is his only reprieve, much like how Claire finds comfort in Paul’s authority at the beginning of the novel. While Sam remains detached from the living, first consumed by grief and then by death, his remaining family members band together to ensure a brighter future, finding strength in one another.

As for the climax, where Claire and Lydia finally kill Paul, it is significant that the women break through the garage so easily. When the sisters first explored the Fuller house, they perceived it to be a carefully constructed, inescapable prison hidden in plain sight. When the fire consumes it and the insulation melts away, the two sisters manage to break through the sheetrock, revealing that the sturdiness of its construction was a farce that is susceptible to fire. This evokes the idea of fire as an agent of change, one that enables purification or redemption, so long as one survives the flames. Once Claire sets fire to this house that embodies so many of the horrors in her life, she is able to look toward the future.

Claire’s choice of fire as a weapon is calculated, not because it is effective but because it will inflict the most potential terror upon Paul. This choice and her insistence on dealing the final blow to her husband marks another strengthening of Claire’s resolve. The fire does not spread the way she planned, but Claire is determined not to let Paul regain control of the situation, especially since their grappling for control has turned deadly. This is why she pins him down to watch him take his final breaths. She gains the upper hand via sexual positioning, taking control and subjecting Paul to sort of violence he inflicted on so many women. Claire’s deliberate dismissal of his pleas for an ambulance mirrors the depersonalization inherent in Paul’s abuse and the frayed state of their marriage.

For Lydia, who has already confronted some of her past trauma, committing violence against Paul lowers her to his base level. However, for Claire, who has avoided and repressed her trauma for years, this final moment of controlled violence conveys that no matter how Paul tries to exterminate her family, she will survive and seize control of it all—a thought that she is sure will upset him.

Once Julia’s bones are found, the Carrolls and Delgados come together as a family unit. This time, trauma strengthens their ties. This is apparent even in a superficial sense, as Claire is only able to avoid criminal charges through her familial connections to a good lawyer, proving that she’s strongest when maintaining close ties with family.

Julia’s bones aren’t the only manifestation of final peace: Claire’s future opens in front of her now that she finally has the control she so desperately needed. Ironically, this freedom is marked through deficit: She is free because she has lost her house, her marriage, and the semblance of who she pretended so hard to be. However, her future unfolds because she acknowledges the deficit and agrees to move on. This mirrors the emotional transformation Claire and other characters have regarding Julia’s death: Now that they can properly process Julia’s loss, they can finally enjoy their happy memories from when she was alive and forge new ones in her absence.