payment page
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Woodturning
Hannah’s work as a woodturner and furniture maker symbolizes a vital aspect of her self-identity. Woodturning involves using a lathe to shape wood into other objects. The activity connects her to her late grandfather. Hannah is forthright about the importance of her work to her identity, even wondering why it appealed to her as a lonely, hurt child. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she and Owen initially connect through his interest in her craft. She creates a symbol of their love when she makes their wedding rings from wood. Even after they marry, his love for her work appeals to her, and the reason he rejects witness protection for the family is partly because it would require her to give up woodturning. While touring Nicholas’s house, seeing one of her own tables startles Hannah. The piece reminds her of how close Nicholas could have come to finding them. It also potentially suggests that, just as a literal tree has many branches, Bailey’s family tree can include many different branches as well. Hannah also often relies on comparisons to wood to explain her thinking about emotions and events.
Bailey’s Piggy Bank
Bailey’s piggy bank offers a material representation of Owen’s love for her and Hannah. At first, Owen seems unusually obsessed with the piggy bank. When flooding forces them to evacuate their houseboat, Owen not only takes the piggy bank with him but keeps it with him at a hotel bar in the middle of the night. He appears to guard the piggy bank in the same way that he protects his family, and he leaves nothing to chance when concealing his most closely kept secrets. Once Hannah realizes the piggy bank’s hidden significance, she needs a safecracker to open it. Throughout the novel, Hannah struggles to reconcile the Owen who lied to her with the Owen she loves. The piggy bank helps her realize that both Owens are the same man. In the will he hides inside it, she finds proof of his complete faith in her as he shares all his secrets with her and entrusts Bailey to her.
The Houseboat
The houseboat, a home without a solid mooring, represents the characters’ fluid family dynamic. Owen and Bailey live in the house alone together before Hannah arrives, so she feels like an intruder. To minimize her impact, Hannah redecorates only the porch and her own bedroom. Hannah often refers to the houseboat as “the floating home,” which conveys the lack of stability and security she feels there. Initially eager to leave the houseboat for Austin, Hannah soon finds herself missing its familiarity. She also realizes that Owen picked wisely in choosing a floating home for his life on the run. As Jake explains, living there generates less of a paper trail than a more conventional house would have. Presumably, if Owen and Bailey had ever had to flee, they could even take their floating house with them rather than leaving it behind. Hannah and Bailey return to the houseboat together as a family, remaining there until Bailey graduates from high school. Afterward they move, no longer needing the unique security it had provided.
