Tess

Tess Copeland is Jared Copeland’s wife and Eve Copeland’s mother, whose death remains a defining absence in both their lives. The scenes that recall her show how loss continues to govern Jared’s responses to danger while also giving father and daughter a shared point of connection as they begin to speak more openly.

Identity and Family

Tess is established through her relationships: she is Jared’s wife and Eve’s mother. The evidence presents her through what those closest to her remember and through the effects of her absence, rather than through a scene in which she acts directly. Her place in the family remains vivid even after her death.

Death and Its Aftermath

Two years before Eve is attacked at Thirsk Palace Cinema, Jared panicked, and Will Radley took his wife away. When Jared finds Eve injured, that earlier failure returns with force: he understands the danger and tries to move beyond panic so he can help his daughter. Tess’s loss has made this possibility something he has feared throughout the intervening years.

Later, while carrying the unconscious Eve to the Radley home, Jared imagines Tess watching him and apologizes to her. The moment makes his decision to seek help feel like a reckoning with the past as well as an urgent attempt to save his daughter. His appeal to the Radleys is shaped by the memory of what Will did to Tess, yet Eve’s condition leaves him with no safe ordinary course to follow.

Memory and Continuing Influence

After Eve survives and is converted, Jared remains unsettled by the changes in her appearance, habits, and diet. At the same time, he recognizes a change he welcomes: he and Eve now talk rather than fall into arguments and old power struggles. Their conversations include fond memories of her mother, keeping Tess present in their relationship without making her loss the only subject they share.

Tess therefore remains central to the family’s emotional history even in absence. Her memory links Jared’s fear of repeating the past to his effort to care for Eve in the present, while the conversations about her help mark a new openness between father and daughter.