You can't run away from your life

Everything Portia’s been running away from is catching up with her.

Portia was reading applications when she realized that almost all of the applicants were born in the same year she had her baby. She had a hard time grasping the idea that she could possibly be the mother of one of the Princeton applicants she reviews and makes decisions about. This section ends with this line, “So it’s here she thought. As if she hadn’t been waiting, and for years, for just this moment” (141). Why was she waiting for this moment—the moment when the child she had was old enough to apply to colleges? Is she hoping that by chance one of the applicants she comes to know and grows close to by reading their applications and essays is her own child? Is she hoping for some link to the child she gave up?

Another thing that Portia was running away from was the acknowledgement of her deteriorating relationship with Mark. She was consciously settling in her relationship with Mark,and she was choosing being comfortable over being happy. On their drive to Vermont, Mark told Portia that he and Helen were pregnant together and that he was leaving Portia to be with her. What an admission huh? (I must say this book is very predictable—I saw this coming when Helen was being such a jerk to Portia at the dinner). A sixteen year relationship is over just like that. However, Portia had just had a conversation with her friend Rachel that same day about her relationship with Mark. Rachel told Portia that she wanted her to be happy, and if her relationship with Mark made her happy then great, but if it didn’t that she should find a relationship that did. The timing was perfect. David’s infidelity gave Portia the freedom that may allow her to find a relationship that truly makes her happy.

Portia had to go straight from this disaster into the one waiting for her at her mom’s house in Vermont. The pregnant teenager that her mom took in is causing Portia to remember her own secret pregnancy. When she takes Caitlin, the pregnant teenager, to the midwife’s office, she has an anxiety attack. Caitlin’s situation is hitting Portia too close to home. Portia admits for the first time, to Caitlin after her appointment, that she was pregnant once. Maybe Caitlin’s presence will help Portia finally come to terms with her past actions and move on once and for all. Maybe this lost seventeen-year-old girl will help Portia find herself.

You can’t run away from yourself or your past. Portia is beginning to realize this. All of the things she thought she was hiding so well are coming to the surface, and she is not ready to deal with them all. Portia’s carefully arranged world is crumbling down around her. How many more admissions will she make, and to whom?

We shall see.