If Only
The story opens with the protagonist, Hadley, arriving just four minutes later for her flight. Before revealing those consequences, however, is a litany of imagery of all the things that happened to make her late as she considers how if only any single or two of them had happened, her entire trip would have turned out so completely different. “Imagine if she hadn’t forgotten the book…Or before that, even: Imagine if she hadn’t waited to try on her dress…Or later: if she hadn’t given herself a paper cut while printing out her ticket…If the wheel of her suitcase hadn’t been off-kilter…If she’d run just a bit faster to the gate.” This is a story that pursues the idea that many of the most significant turning points in our lives—or at least those we perceive at the time to be significant turning points—often hinge on the smallest and seemingly most insignificant of actions, such as those listed above.
Library In Her Soul
The story is also about the strain that divorce puts on some father/daughter relationships. Especially when the father remarries and the daughter feels coerced into flying across the Atlantic to attend the wedding. The bond that this ritualistic ceremony threatens to break is poignantly posed through the imagery of recollection of a long-past father/daughter ritual. “The stories had become a part of her by then; they stuck to her bones like a good meal, bloomed inside of her like a garden. They were as deep and meaningful as any other trait Dad had passed along to her: her blue eyes, her straw-colored hair, the sprinkling of freckles across her nose…He was a professor, a lover of stories, and he was building her a library in the same way other men might build their daughter's houses.” This imagery is revealing of the tightness of that bond as well as the danger of its fragility. Situating a learned love of reading as an inherited genetic trait is very effective at communicating just how much this reading ritual meant to both participants. It also underscores the significance of the development of Hadley’s character. As if that weren’t enough, the passage also treats the reader with a physical description of both Hadley and her daughter.
Foreshadowing
Imagery is used for the purpose of foreshadowing after Hadley had met Oliver on the plane and then lost him in the London airport. “The line for taxis is almost comically long…Everything seems to blur as her gaze moves from the queue ahead of her to the departing buses to the line of black taxis waiting their turn, as solemn and silent as a funeral procession.” Oliver is British and is returning home on the later flight Hadley is forced to take after missing her scheduled plane. He is not entirely honest about what is bringing him home and the imagery upon which this passage concludes is a rather macabre preview of the revelation of the truth.
What If?
The novel begins with imagery of things that did happen which served to change the course of fate. The novel concludes with imagery of things that didn’t happen that might have changed the course of fate. “A man walks up with his hat in his hands. A woman walks up in a pair of outrageously tall boots. A young boy walks up with a handheld video game. A mother with a crying baby. A man with a mustache like a broom. An elderly couple with matching sweaters. A boy in a blue shirt with not a single crumb from a doughnut.” All of those are people that might possibly have approached Hadley as she sits on steps, ready to sink into despondency. They are all examples of someone who might have approached her and possibly altered the course of fate. Instead, as fate would have, the figure that does approach is a boy with a crooked tie and a book in his hand who chooses to sit down beside her. A boy named Oliver.
