St. Anthony statue

The St. Anthony statue is a small plastic figure whose changing place in the Walker home makes it more than a familiar ornament: after Bailey Walker’s death, Lennie Walker holds it while confronting both her sister’s absence and the secrets Bailey left behind. Its title as patron of lost things connects the grief Lennie can name with the questions about Bailey that she cannot answer.

Appearance and Placement

Lennie finds the statue at Bailey’s desk, tucked behind the computer and set in front of an old drawing. This is not where it belongs in Lennie’s understanding of the room: she has always kept it on the mantel, in front of The Half Mom. Bailey must have moved it, Lennie thinks, but she does not know why. The small displacement is therefore conspicuous. An ordinary object has become a clue whose significance cannot be read directly.

The drawing behind it depicts the mother their grandmother, Gram, had described as an explorer. Bailey made it after Gram told the girls that their mother was an explorer, and the drawing had hung on the wall long enough for Lennie to stop noticing it. Its paper has yellowed and its edges curled by the time Lennie looks at it again. The statue’s position brings this old image back into view, tying its new place at the desk to a childhood story about their absent mother.

The Drawing and the Question of Loss

The drawing records a specific moment in Bailey’s childhood. At about eleven, she had been questioning Gram for weeks about whether their mother would return. In Gram’s art room, Bailey asked the question again while she and Lennie drew on the floor with pastels. Gram eventually explained that their mother had a restless nature and would travel before, perhaps, finding her way home. The girls had not imagined an explanation so hopeful. Lennie followed Gram to ask more; Bailey stayed behind and drew.

In the picture, a woman stands on a mountain with her back to the viewer, looking into the distance. Gram, Big, and Lennie stand at the mountain’s base, their names written beneath their feet as they wave up at her. The word Explorer appears in green below the scene. Bailey does not include herself. The statue’s placement before this drawing makes it newly difficult for Lennie to treat the picture as merely an old childhood artifact: together, figure and image direct her attention toward what Bailey might have been trying to find or recover.

Lennie holds the statue against her chest and wonders why Bailey needed it, what Bailey had lost, and what she needed to find. The questions remain questions. The narrative does not establish that Bailey moved the figure as a deliberate message, or explain what she believed it could do. Its force comes instead from the collision between its association with lost things and Lennie’s effort to understand a sister she has lost.

An Object Held Through Grief

The statue recurs at Bailey’s desk as Lennie struggles with the practical aftermath of death. When boxes are open beside the desk and she cannot bring herself to touch the drawers, she sits holding the figure. Opening the drawers makes Bailey’s ordinary absence feel physically unbearable: Lennie imagines her sister enclosed in an airless box and forces that image away. The statue gives her hands something to hold as she remains near the belongings she cannot yet sort.

Later, after a loss of control and a painful sense that she has broken promises to Bailey, Lennie goes to The Sanctum. The room has been considered lucky by Gram and is mostly untouched; Bailey’s belongings have not been disturbed. Lennie speaks to the explorer drawing and apologizes, then asks Bailey for a sign of forgiveness. As she finally approaches the desk drawer, she remembers the pact against snooping that she and Bailey had kept. The statue belongs to this scene of hesitation: it is both something Lennie can carry and a reminder that Bailey’s private things are still private, even as grief presses her to look.

The Private Investigator’s Card

When Lennie opens the drawer, she finds ordinary belongings, including pens, playbills, concert tickets, an address book, an old phone, and business cards. One card is for Paul Booth, a private investigator with a San Francisco address. On its back, Bailey has written an appointment date and time, 4/25 at 4 p.m., and Suite 2B. Lennie can think of no reason Bailey would have consulted an investigator other than to search for their mother. She also remembers that Big had previously tried to find her and had been told it was impossible.

The card does not explain Bailey’s plan or what she learned. Lennie puts it back, takes the statue with her, and places it on the nightstand. Her final questions are about the secrets Bailey kept and whether she can be angry with her sister now. In this sequence, the statue accompanies rather than solves the discovery: it links the childhood image of an explorer mother, Bailey’s unspoken search, and Lennie’s present need for comfort. Its meaning remains open, like the loss it helps Lennie approach.