Note: I no longer have a computer that can connect to the internet, so I had to write this on my phone. That means that I have to battle auto correct and Swype at times to get the right words. I may have missed some incorrect words while proofreading this.
The reader learns the backstory of Sheila, the mother of Dennis and wife of Mr. Holtzman, which gives an insight to her motivations and the creation of who she turned out to be. It is said that she did not marry Holtzman for love (p 126), and even that (for her) "love was an easy thing to do without" (p 127). Sheila's backstory shows the reader why Sheila didn't need love, further building her character. She spent some time living with an aunt and great-uncle who "didn't want her there" (p 113), sleeping in the room of their son who was away. Her aunt didn't want her "drilling the scent of her hair into his pillow, scattering undergarments, bleeding onto his mattress" (p 113), but they allowed her to stay as long as she only changed her clothes in the pantry. Her uncle got her a job at a local bakery where she would work for wages that went straight to him. At the bakery, she was often sexually assaulted by her boss. Her first day, he "kissed" her, though "it was not a kiss, it was all teeth and wet bone, and she could feel the low laughter in his chest in the moment before he released her" (p 116). She continued suffering such assaults throughout her days there, until she finally got a new job.
Once she took a new job, she dropped out of school. School was something her parents had wished for her to complete. Dropping out and fully entering the workforce signified her breaking away from her family and childish innocence. This abandonment of her former self and situation is further shown by describing how "at twelve she had imagined two hovering angels to guide her for the rest of her life, but she had since lived too many desolate nights in rooms where she was not wanted and did not belong, eaten too many bitter meals, every bite and every sip counted and resented. She had tasted Mr. Dixon's breath, smelled the sharp, lingering scent of his saliva on her cheeks and lips even as she bowed her head and asked them to deliver her" (p 119). Her life after her parents' deaths had so sorely lacked love that she slowly lost her innocence and grew up to the woman she turned out to be. Had they lived, perhaps she would have taken a different path, but the absence of their influence caused for Sheila to go in a different direction.
The effects of the absence of love on Sheila's character is shown by the author through the story about her interactions with Daniel. Each day he greeted her but she gave "him nothing in return, not even the time of day" (p 123). The author then reveals that "that was what she couldn't get enough of -- after the life she had led. To be noticed, to be singled out. To be recognized as someone unlike any other" (p 123). This shows the reader that her life without love has made her enjoy it but not know how to reciprocate it.
When the author tells about Sheila's marriage to Mr. Holtzman, she writes that "there was a laundry list of reasons why she had married again and not one of them had anything to do with love, but with enough space (when you came right down to it), enough baseboard and yarn and empty room, enough heat in the winter and sufficient websites to open for a cross breeze in the summer, love was an easy thing to do without" (p 126-7). This shows the reader that in the end, Sheila did not need love and did not value it as much as many others do. By giving her backstory before telling how Sheila doesn't need love, the author shows the reader exactly what it is that made Sheila the person she was in the end.
After McDermott wrote that "love was an easy thing to do without" (p 127) she added "fro some of us, anyway" (p 127). This comment brings the reader's mind back to Billy who, some suspected, never got over the loss of Eva, the woman he loved. Sheila serves as a character who lives the life Billy never could. She shows a large he could have taken but did not. This prompts the reader to consider the circumstances and character traits that allowed Sheila to survive without something which Billy was crippled by the loss of. This allows for a character analysis that allows the reader to realize something new about both Billy and Sheila, as well as about people in general.
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