Tully’s Repeated Abandonment

This thread traces how Dorothy Hart’s instability repeatedly leaves Tully Hart feeling unwanted, and how those wounds shape her defenses and her search for a family.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

The Protest Disappearance

Lost in the Crowd The reunion that fails Dorothy Hart returns to Tully Hart’s life on her birthday, intoxicated and intent on taking her daughter away from Ima Hart. Tully has imagined a private reunion filled with affection; instead, she is swept into her mother’s bohemian world without explanation or preparation. At the crowded protest, Tully clings to Dorothy’s hand, trying to stay close as the hours pass. When the crowd shifts and the adults grow distracted, she loses her mother and waits for her to return. A child’s explanation Dorothy never comes back. A policeman eventually takes Tully home, but the child interprets the abandonment as proof that she has done something wrong. She resolves to be better next time, turning a parent’s failure into a judgment on herself.

The Birthday That Becomes Another Goodbye

Waiting at the Door Hope kept alive After Dorothy Hart leaves her at the protest, Tully holds on to the possibility that her mother will return. On her eleventh birthday, she watches the door, imagining that this might be the day Dorothy appears and sees the child she has missed. Ima Hart explains that Dorothy has problems and may not come. Her attempt to comfort Tully does not erase the child’s central question: whether her mother loves her, and why that love feels so distant. A private record of worth Tully begins a scrapbook, intending to show Dorothy the life she has missed and give her reasons to be proud. Over the years, she fills books with pictures and keepsakes, sometimes embellishing her stories so they will look more impressive. The scrapbooks give Tully a project, but they also expose the conflict beneath it: she is trying to earn recognition from a parent who is not reliably present. By fourteen, she hides the books away and tells classmates that her mother died, choosing a protective lie over continued public humiliation.

The Promise of a New Home

A New Beginning Under Strain A friendship with a secret Tully arrives in Snohomish with Dorothy Hart and quickly becomes popular, but that attention does not resolve her loneliness. When Kate Mularkey visits with a casserole, Tully claims that her mother has cancer, disguising the shame and neglect of life at home. Margie Mularkey recognizes that Tully is caring for Dorothy and carrying adult responsibilities alone. She urges Tully to be honest with Kate and offers a different model of care: concern that does not require Tully to pretend. Truth and renewed fear Tully eventually tells Kate about Dorothy’s repeated departures and admits that she lied because she wanted Kate to like her. Kate forgives her, and the girls promise to remain friends. For the first time, Tully feels safe with someone who knows the truth. That security is tested when Dorothy’s protest-related arrest leads officials to send Tully back to Ima Hart. Tully knows she cannot repair her mother’s choices, yet leaving Kate reactivates the same fear: every home and attachment may be temporary.

The Funeral-Side Rejection

No One Left to Take Her In The last hoped-for return When Ima Hart dies, Tully is seventeen and suddenly without her guardian. At the funeral, she is overwhelmed by condolences that do not change the fact that she must face the loss alone; Kate Mularkey is away with her family and cannot reach her in time. Then Tully sees Dorothy Hart nearby and runs toward her, hoping that her mother has finally returned because she understands how badly Tully needs her. The hope lasts only moments. Rejection made explicit Dorothy says she cannot help Tully. Tully pleads that she needs her mother, and Dorothy calls that need a tragedy before disappearing again. Social services then arranges foster care, while the lawyer explains that Tully’s inheritance is meant to secure her future rather than preserve her childhood home. The scene sharpens Tully’s belief that she is easy to leave. She turns toward Kate and the Mularkeys as the family she can rely on, even as the old wound continues to shape her later fear of dependence.

The Necklace and the Unfinished Bond

Evidence of a Connection The confrontation Tully visits Dorothy Hart after she is hospitalized following an overdose and a beating. The sight of her mother, bruised and frail, unsettles Tully’s familiar defenses. She asks why Dorothy never loved her, but Dorothy turns away and tells her to forget about her. Tully cannot fully accept that instruction. She tells Dorothy that she will keep coming back, revealing how the daughter’s hope persists despite decades of disappointment. The conflict does not resolve into reconciliation; Dorothy falls asleep, and Tully remains beside her. A keepsake changes the story While looking through Dorothy’s belongings, Tully finds the macaroni-and-bead necklace she made as a child. Dorothy has kept it for years, evidence that the past may contain care that she never managed to express. The discovery does not erase the abandonment or provide an explanation for it. Instead, it complicates Tully’s certainty that nothing in their relationship was worth holding on to. When Dorothy disappears from the hospital again, the bond remains unfinished, but Tully can see that it was not simply nonexistent.

1970, during the Seattle antiwar protest

1970, on Tully’s eleventh birthday

1974, after Tully moves to Snohomish

1977, after Ima Hart’s funeral

After Dorothy Hart’s hospital admission, near the end of the story