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The only reason Andy wasn’t smiling was that it was clear from the photo that someone had repeatedly punched her mother in the face. Laura’s left eye was swollen shut. Her nose was askew. There were deep bruises around her neck. She stared into the camera, expressionless. She was somewhere else, being someone else, while her injuries were documented. Andy knew that look.
When Andy peers at the Polaroid photographs that she finds in her mother’s storage unit, she is surprised to see evidence that Laura had been savagely beaten. In the photographs, a much younger Laura has a swollen eye, a broken nose, and several bruises. Though Andy does not know who attacked her mother, later chapters set in 1986 describe scenes of domestic violence. Laura, then known as Jane, was involved in a long-term relationship with Nick, who violently attacks Jane when she reveals that she is pregnant with his child, hoping to induce an abortion. Jane’s narration implies that Nick has beaten her at several points in the past to punish and control her, and he again beats her after a second pregnancy. When Andy looks at her mother’s face in the photos, she seems “expressionless” as if she were “somewhere else” while the photos were taken. Andy recognizes this as a sign that Jane was attempting to emotionally distance herself from her own abuse, mentally escaping from the violence by withdrawing into her own mind.
What Jane had not realized until she was safely tucked away in Berlin was that for as long as she had been conscious of being alive, she had always had a ball of fear that slept inside of her stomach. For years, she had told herself that being neurotic was the bane of a solo artist’s success, but in truth, the thing that kept her walking carefully, self-censoring her words, conforming her emotions, was the heavy presence of the two men in her life. Sometimes Martin would wake her fear. Sometimes Nick. With their words. With their threats. With their hands. And sometimes, occasionally, with their fists.
After Nick murders Alexandra Maplecroft in what he claims was an accident, law enforcement descends upon the Army of the Changing World’s “hideout,” killing Quarter and prompting the others to make a quick escape. In their getaway van, a shocked Jane wonders how she has found herself in this dangerous position. Before the events in Oslo, Jane had been living in Berlin. There, an ocean away from both her father and her boyfriend, she experienced true independence for the first time. When she reflects upon what made her time in Berlin so special, Jane realizes that she was not afraid. Previously, she had always felt “a ball of fear” in her stomach. She carried this fear around with her everywhere, first due to her abusive father, and later due to her abusive boyfriend.
Because of these two men, Jane had spent all of her life carefully trying to avoid making mistakes that might irritate them, “self-censoring her words” and adjusting her own emotions to suit their moods. Jane knew that if she were to step out of line, she would be subject to insults, threats, and physical assault. Jane’s entire life, then, has been defined by the threat of male violence. At this point in the novel, Jane begins to recognize that her attachment to Nick is unhealthy and even dangerous.
Jane had been one of those broken, discarded things. Nick had sent her away to Berlin because he was tired of her. At first, she had enjoyed her freedom, but then she had panicked that he might not want her back. She had begged and pleaded with him and done everything she could think of to get his attention.
As an adult, Laura, formerly named Jane, is able to look back upon her toxic relationship to Nick with a greater sense of maturity and clarity. Nick, she realizes, was a masterful manipulator of others, both pulling people towards him and pushing them away in order to leave them in a state of uncertainty. With Jane, Nick alternates between periods of affection, outbursts of violence, and cold neglect, making her feel as though her actions are responsible for his changes in mood. Because she feels that she herself is to blame for his abusive behavior, she is desperate to do anything she can to please him, not recognizing that Nick’s sudden shifts in mood are a deliberate tactic which he employs to manipulate her. When Nick sends Jane to live in Berlin, she feels that this is a punishment for her failure to please and excite him. Feeling that she must do something to win back his attention and affection, she ultimately plans the murder of her father, Martin, at the conference in Oslo. That Jane is willing to resort to such drastic action underscores the profound psychological impact of Nick’s abuse.
