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Summary
Chapter 14
Back in 1986, Jane regains consciousness after being beaten by Nick and finds, to her relief, that she has not lost the baby. Most of the group members have left for the next stage of their plan, leaving Andrew, Jane, and Paula, who has been charged with preventing Jane from leaving and taking Andrew to the hospital, which might risk exposing their plan. Reflecting upon how she has found herself in this situation, Jane acknowledges that Nick has beaten her in the past, terminating a previous pregnancy. Though Martin had indeed been extremely abusive to her, even raping her several times during her youth, the photos in the metal box actually show Nick’s abuse. As Andrew rests, Jane and Paula have a tense conversation, each taunting the other. Before Paula can react, Jane smashes the metal box into the side of her head, helps a dying Andrew into the van, and drives towards a hospital, where he is intubated in an emergency room.
As Jane sits with Andrew, Jasper Queller appears in the hospital and tells her that there was an explosion in Chicago, killing one of Nick’s followers as they attempted to set off the detonator. Additionally, he informs her that the FBI looked up Nick’s fingerprints and found that he has been lying about his identity and background. In fact, Nick comes from a well-off family and fled during an investigation into the death of his girlfriend by strangulation. Jasper encourages Jane to make a deal with the FBI, trading information for a reduced sentence. As they chat, Jane realizes that Jasper knew about their Oslo plans and agreed to help Nick in the hopes of replacing his father as head of QuellCorp. When Jane reveals that Nick has papers incriminating Jasper in criminal activities, Jasper is shocked. He then attempts to persuade Jane to pin the blame on the dying Andrew, whom he disparages for his addiction and his homosexuality. Shocked and disgusted by Jasper’s bigoted words, she demands that he leave, threatening to release the papers if he ever contacts her again. She turns to one of the FBI agents waiting by the hospital room and indicates that if they offer her a deal, she will give them information to prevent the bombing in New York.
Chapter 15
In the present, Andy sees that Edwin is dead and hears Clara scream as someone smacks her with a gun. Then, Andy hears the confused voice of her mother on the phone as Paula appears, brandishing a revolver. Over the phone, Paula threatens to kill Andy unless Laura brings an unidentified object with her to a rendezvous point at a motel in Indiana. After losing consciousness, Andy wakes up in the back seat of a car. Tied up and in pain due to her wound, she reflects upon what she has learned and wonders what it is that Paula wants from Laura. Later, in the motel, Paula answers some of Andy’s questions as they wait. She tells her that after making a deal with the FBI, Laura spent two years in prison, where she gave birth to Andy before entering the Witness Protection Program. For the first two years of her life, Andy was raised by Clara and Edwin, though her biological father is Nick. In contrast, Paula spent 20 years in prison, and Nick is still imprisoned after getting caught attempting to detonate a bomb in New York due to information Laura provided to the FBI. Paula’s goal, Andy learns, is to recover papers from Laura that prove that Jasper Quiller, who is running for president, illegally accepted payments for dead patients while working under Martin at QuellCorp. After seeing the video from the diner on the news, Paula sent Hoodie after Laura in Georgia. When Andy arrived at her house in Texas, Paula at first believed that she had been sent by her mother. After Andy attacked Mike, who is in fact a U.S. Marshall and Laura’s handler in the Witness Protection Program, Paula realized that Andy must not know the truth about her mother.
As Laura approaches the hotel, Paula places a gag in Andy’s mouth and confronts her old enemy. Threatening to kill Andy, Paula forces Laura to disarm herself and hand over the incriminating papers. Her plan, she reveals, is to tie up Laura, kill her, and then blackmail Jasper into securing Nick’s release from prison. However, Andy realizes that Paula used all the bullets in her revolver at the farmhouse, and using her hands, she indicates this to Laura. Laura then attacks Paula, slicing her throat with a razor hidden in her palm and killing her.
Epilogue
Laura and Andy visit the federal prison in Maryland where Nick is incarcerated. There, they chat about recent events. Andy notes that Clara has been placed in a care facility for people with Alzheimer’s, and Laura explains that after Hoodie was killed, she lied to the police and then hid the body with the help of Gordon. Mike arrives and escorts Laura alongside another marshal named Rosenfeld, who places small microphones disguised as hearing aids in Laura’ s ears. In the visitation room, Laura encounters Nick, who is still handsome and charismatic. They discuss the past and the incident at the diner, which Nick saw on television. She attempts to bait him into admitting that he sent Paula on Laura’s trail, but he, conversely, gets Laura to admit that she hid the gun in the bathroom in Oslo. Alternatively flirting with and threatening Laura, Nick demands that she play the piano, and under the cover of music, he admits that he instructed Paula to send Hoodie after Laura to obtain Jasper’s papers and blackmail him into securing his release from prison. Laura tells Nick that she is done with him, exits the visitation room, and talks things over with the marshals, who tell her that Nick will be sent to a prison with heightened security to ensure Andy’s safety in the future. Laura and Andy chat about their family and the future, and Laura privately reflects upon her relationship to Nick.
Analysis: Chapters 14 & 15 and Epilogue
These final chapters center on the complicated nature of family. In Pieces of Her, the family can be a source of love and strength, but also of pain and trauma. These conflicting emotions converge in Laura’s relationship to the other members of the Queller family. Her father, she reveals, began sexually assaulting her at an early age. Martin’s sexual, physical, and psychological abuse of Laura pushes her into the arms of Nick, who at first seems to offer her a way to escape her father. Unfortunately, however, Nick proves to be just as abusive as Martin, despite their profoundly different beliefs and lifestyles. The abuse of women by men, the novel suggests, is not limited to just one system of belief or political party. Because she is so accustomed to mistreatment by Martin, she is particularly vulnerable to the manipulation of Nick, who falsely claims to have had similar experiences of sexual abuse to establish a sense of shared victimization between them. Despite his violent and bullying behavior towards her, Laura returns to him after each fight, allowing Nick to influence her thoughts and beliefs to such an extent that she doubts herself when noticing his lies.
Ultimately, it is only after Nick proves willing to sacrifice her brothers that Laura finds the strength to see through his various deceptions, defy his will, and ultimately free herself from his grasp. Her decision to sit in the hospital with Andrew as he dies from an advanced case of AIDS proves to be a major moral turning point in the novel. In refusing to leave him behind and travel with the others to New York, Laura not only spares Andrew from a good deal of unnecessary pain, but she also inadvertently gives herself the opportunity for redemption. At the hospital, she provides the FBI with information necessary to stop the bombing, saving untold lives. Further, Laura takes accountability for her prior involvement in the group’s activities by refusing to scapegoat the dying Andrew, as Jasper suggests.
Her final conversation with Jasper, in which he not only reveals that he was part of the conspiracy to murder Martin but also that he is willing to sacrifice Andrew, points to the internal divisions and lack of loyalty within the Queller family. Rather than acting as a united front, some members of the family are willing to betray each other for personal gain and control of the family business. Further, Jasper’s homophobic attitude towards Andrew serves as yet another division within the family, contributing to the insurmountable tensions and pushing Laura away from him.
Ultimately, and despite her own traumatic upbringing, Laura’s story also attests to the strength that can be found in family. After waiting with Andrew in the emergency room until his death, she decides to honor his life and legacy by following his final wish that she “trade” Nick for her own security, making a deal with the FBI. Throughout her grueling period of imprisonment in solitary confinement, she finds in her unborn child the strength and motivation to carry on and be a mother to her child. Raising Andy, who she named after Andrew, Laura finds a new sense of purpose, and just as importantly, she finds the strength not to return to Nick, as she had so many times before. The Epilogue of the novel serves as something of a test of Laura’s resolve. Finding herself in front of Nick for the first time in several decades, she feels the effect of Nick’s charm working on her, but ultimately, her concern for Andy’s safety is enough to help her resist her former lover and to ensure that he can never leave prison or threaten their daughter ever again.
