Eve

Eve is the Roses’ daughter, whose understanding of her family is tested by her parents’ separation and ultimately by the destruction of their home. At first she cannot reconcile her mother’s decision to leave the marriage with the household she had known as a place of shared routines and apparent closeness. As the conflict worsens, Eve becomes more than a distressed observer: she confides in Ann, tries to keep herself and Josh from being sent away, and finally returns with him when their parents disappear from contact. Her return places the children inside the danger their parents have made of the family home.

Identity and Family Crisis

Eve learns from Barbara that her parents have decided to go their separate ways. She describes the announcement to Ann as a declaration of independence: Barbara said she wanted to pursue her own aspirations and no longer be an appendage. The explanation does not reassure Eve. She had not known her mother saw herself that way, and what troubles her most is the possibility that Barbara was unhappy with Oliver. Eve cannot tell whether her father was unhappy too, because Barbara did not say. To Eve, the decision is not an abstract dispute between adults but the sudden rupture of a family she thought was unusually happy.

Her shock is sharpened by the contrast between the separation and the life she remembers. She tells Ann that she, her friends, and others had believed her parents had one of the best marriages around. They had seemed to do things together, including things connected with the house. Eve says she will try to understand because her mother asked her to, but admits that she does not understand what Barbara wants to be free from. Her account shows how little the parents’ apparently shared life had prepared her for the change in how Barbara understood it.

The news also forces Eve toward a maturity she has not chosen. Ann sees her teetering on the edge of adulthood as she tries to regain control of herself, then sits on the edge of a sleigh bed and lights a cigarette. Later, she tells Ann that her parents have simply gone crazy. At first the children had tried, in subtle ways, to bring about a reconciliation; faced with their parents’ continuing hostility, they gradually give up and settle into grudging acceptance. Eve spends more time with friends and less under Ann’s scrutiny, while Josh seeks refuge in basketball and other sports and continues to see Oliver.

Protecting Josh and Seeking Help

Eve refuses to go to camp because she understands that the plan is meant to remove the children from the atmosphere at home. Her refusal has a deeper reason: she is afraid to leave her parents alone together. She tells Ann this privately and asks her to keep it secret. For others, Eve has composed a less revealing explanation, just as her parents maintain their own facades; with Ann, she finally gives a glimpse of the fear beneath it.

She wishes her parents would reconcile, or that one parent and the children would move out, and says she would rather see them sell the house and end the situation. She feels that the family no longer exists in any meaningful sense, even though they all still live under one roof. The home that once stood for their shared life has become the setting of a conflict the children cannot resolve.

Eve asks Ann to speak to Oliver and prevent him from sending the children to camp. To make the case, she even suggests that Ann tell him she is in a bad crowd, smoking dope, or needs strong parental supervision. These are proposed pretexts, not disclosures that Eve is doing those things. She insists that Ann must not tell Oliver the real reason: Eve believes she and Josh are the only reason their parents have not torn each other apart. Her question about how love can turn to hate expresses the limits of what she can understand, while her belief that Oliver will listen to Ann—and her sense that there are things Ann perceives but does not explain—places the caregiver inside the children’s attempt to manage the crisis.

That attempt does not settle the conflict. Eve later admits to Barbara that she had prompted Ann to intervene because she did not want to go to camp and did not know whom else to approach with a grievance. Barbara recognizes that the household’s indirect communication has become a circuit: Oliver speaks to Ann, Eve speaks to Ann, and the lawyers communicate with one another. Eve’s admission shows both her resourcefulness and the constrained position from which she must act. She knows her mother has other pressing concerns and says she did not want to complicate Barbara’s life further.

The Children Return

The separation becomes still more frightening when Eve and Josh are away and neither parent contacts them for three weeks. Eve calls Ann in a state of alarm: Josh is a nervous wreck, and she is scared. The disconnected telephone and a telegram returned as undeliverable convince her that the parents are not simply away on an ordinary vacation. Neither grandmother has heard from them either. Eve insists that she and Josh are still their children, whatever the differences between their parents, and begins to cry as she wonders why they have not called or written.

Ann promises to find the parents and tell them to contact Eve, hoping to keep the children away from the house. But Eve has already decided to find out for herself. When Ann later calls the camp, a friend named Kathy tells her that Eve has left with Josh. They have taken a one-o’clock bus home. Eve’s choice answers the unanswered calls with action: she will no longer wait at a distance while her family’s whereabouts and safety remain uncertain.

The House and Its Final Destruction

Oliver sees the children arrive by taxi and retreats from the window rather than greet them. When they enter, broken objects impede his footing, and he falls. Eve and Josh slip on the slick surface and struggle toward the stairs. Barbara, above them, cries for them to go back; when she sees Oliver, she implores him to save their children. Eve’s return thus brings the family together at the very moment the house’s accumulated hazards make that reunion dangerous. As the children climb, untacked carpet gives way and cast-iron pots roll down the stairs; the clock begins to chime and pictures fall from the walls. They press together and narrowly avoid the falling pots.

Barbara loses her balance near the banister and hangs over the unprotected drop. Oliver tells the children to get out while he tries to save her. Eve and Josh make their way through the debris and stand outside, watching the house. The narrative gives no indication that Eve or Josh caused the collapse: they have entered a structure already turned into a dangerous trap. Inside, the roof falls and the walls buckle. Ann finds Oliver and Barbara beneath the rubble, dead and appearing to embrace, their eyes fixed on one another.

The Figures and Eve’s Ending

In the wreckage, Eve and Josh find the Cribb and Molineaux figures. Molineaux remains remarkably intact, its familiar pugilistic pose untouched, while Josh rubs the companion figure clean. Eve reaches for Cribb, and for a moment the siblings hold the figure between them. Josh grasps Molineaux at its base; each claims ownership, and their opposing pulls snap the two figures apart. They stare at the fragments in their hands, stunned.

Eve’s last recorded action repeats, in miniature and without the parents’ immediate violence, the pattern that has governed the household: a shared possession becomes a contest, and the contest ends in destruction. The figures had survived the collapse that killed Oliver and Barbara, but they do not survive the children’s struggle over who owns them. Eve’s story therefore closes not with a repaired family or a recovered home, but with the children standing amid the ruins of both and holding the pieces of an object that had endured the house’s destruction only to break between them.