Archer's Voice

“As I walked back through my own yard to get my purse out of my house, I spotted a lone dandelion full of fluff. I bent and plucked it out of the ground and held it up to my lips […] After a minute I whispered, ‘Peace,’ before I blew and watched the fluff float out of sight, hoping that somehow one of those seeds carrying my whisper would reach that something or someone who had the power to make wishes come true.”

Bree makes this wish and drives into town where she meets Archer for the first time. After they meet, Bree sees dandelion fluff on her windshield. This is symbolic of Bree’s hope for relief from her trauma and a future of happiness.

“Some days I felt like I was barely holding onto my emotions from moment to moment. I supposed we all coped in our different ways—pain and healing as individual as the people who experienced them.”

Bree observes that trauma is both personal and universal. She sees that she and Archer both share the burden of trauma, but their journeys toward healing are unique. This establishes the fact that Archer and Bree’s character arcs will both converge and diverge, something that drives the tension in their romantic arc.

“Something felt…off. It must just be me. I needed to take things slowly.”

Bree goes on a date with Travis but is uncomfortable when he kisses her. She blames herself and her trauma for not being interested in Travis. Travis’s presence in the novel represents an underlying sexual threat that relates to Bree’s previous experiences of sexual assault.

“We each reacted differently in a moment of terror, yet we both still hurt. Maybe there was not right or wrong, no black or white, only a thousand shades of grey when it came to pain and what we each held ourselves responsible for.”

Archer begins to remove fault from himself when considering the trauma he has been through. He is learning to cope by helping Bree come to terms with her own situation. Sheridan uses hyperbole—“a thousand shades of grey”—to reflect the magnitude of Archer’s feelings in this moment.

“Archer started, but he didn’t seem to know how to go on. I didn’t need him to, though. Just my name held so lovingly in his hands made my heart feel lighter.”

Bree learns to communicate with Archer nonverbally. She feels the connection between them and begins to understand him in a deep, intimate way. Bree’s budding love for Archer breaks down the barriers between them and relates to the theme of Varied Forms of Communication.

“Then he kissed me on my front steps, a kiss so sweet and gentle that my heart ached and I could feel his soft lips on my own long after he walked away and turned the corner out of sight.”

This kiss is juxtaposed to the one that Bree shared with Travis after their date. This kiss shows how Archer and Bree have begun to build a relationship that made them feel safe and understood and reflects the fact that touch, for them, is being used as nonverbal communication.

“Archer, I made you feel like you were a project to me. I made you feel like you, just as you are…you weren’t enough.”

Bree signs this apology to Archer after his experience at the strip club. Bree recognizes that Archer’s trauma and isolation will make his integration and healing process lengthy and slow. The different pace of their character development indicated her begins to create tension in their romantic plot.

“For a single heartbeat I wished I could hear that chuckle—I’d bet it was deep and throaty—a beautiful sound. But almost as quickly as the though came, I dismissed it. I wanted him just as he was.”

Bree learns to love Archer’s imperfections. Her love for him makes his differences unnoticeable and she is content to have him exactly the way he is. Her thoughts foreshadow the resolution at end of the novel in which Archer is not changed but rather included.

“He hadn’t told me he loved me, and I hadn’t said it to him, either. But in that moment, I realized I was in love with him.”

When Archer asks Bree if she will stay in Pelion, she agrees. In this moment she realizes that she loves Archer and she would stay with him no matter what. Her thoughts emphasize the fact that she and Archer use Varied Forms of Communication.

“But he was learning, and in a way I felt the loss of that unsure man who looked to me to show him how to pleasure me, to tell him I wanted him at all. But the other part of me gloried in his new found confidence, in the way he took charge of my body and made me weak with desire.”

Bree observes how Archer matures during their relationship and feels comfortable with their intimacy. Bree discovers that their physical relationship is one of the ways Archer communicates with her.

“I’d had an idea for years that Jordan had a crush on me, but I hadn’t known he thought he was in love with me. I loved him, too, but not like that, and I knew I never would.”

Bree acknowledges the different kinds of love in her life. However, Jordan, though a minor character, adds to the sense of the threat of sexual assault in the novel.

“Still, damaged people can do things because they can’t trust or believe in anything good. I’m worried that the more serious it gets with you, the more it’s going to freak him out.”

Natalie, Bree’s friend from Ohio, gives Bree some honest advice about her relationship with Archer. Bree can’t help but agree that Archer’s isolation may have long-term effects on his emotional health. Sheridan brings in a minor character from outside the town to make this observation and drive the major conflict in Bree and Archer’s relationship.

“Oh God, Archer, I thought, my heart constricting painfully in my chest. How do you teach a man who lost everything not to fear it happening again? How do you teach a person to trust in something that none of us can guarantee?”

Bree realizes that she cannot comfort Archer in the way that he needs it. Sheridan uses rhetorical questions in order to engage the reader and emphasize the challenge of Bree’s plight—the question is left unanswered.

“Every cell in my body screamed out to protect him, but I couldn’t. It had already happened. I didn’t even know him then—but the fact I hadn’t been there shot through my body as guilt and grief anyway. It wasn’t rational. It was love.”

Bree reacts to a story that Archer texts her about being made fun of by one of the locals. Bree knows there is nothing she can do to change the past but feels protective of Archer, wishing that she could change the past. Sheridan’s use of the word “shot” echoes the gun violence of which Bree and Archer are both survivors, emphasizing the empathy that Bree feels for Archer.

“I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, feeling Archer on the line against my body, feeling his very being as if he were right there, holding me close, whispering in my ear, You can do this, you’re brave, you can do this. And, as I sat there, Archer’s voice was stronger, louder. His voice was all I heard.” 

Bree keeps Archer on the line on the cellphone in her pocket while she identifies the man who killed her father. Although Archer cannot speak, their connection transcends his inability to speak. Bree knows that Archer’s voice is all the little ways he communicates. The fact that she feels this connection through a phone emphasizes the fact that Archer is beginning to use more Varied Forms of Communication with her.

“Bad things don’t happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s just…life.”

Bree tries to explain to Archer that he is not responsible for the deaths of his parents. She tries to tell him that sometimes events happen that are out of a person’s control. Sheridan uses an ellipsis in order to represent the difficulty of communicating the profundity of “life.” Words fail in this ellipsis, which highlights the fact that Bree and Archer use other ways to communicate such as touch.

“I try to believe that something beautiful can result from something ugly, and that there will come a time when I get to see what that is. You helped me see my own picture, Archer. Let me help you see yours.”

Bree tells Archer about her mother’s cross stitching and how, looking on the other side, the picture was all knots and tangles. She comforts Archer after he shares the story of the accident by claiming that something good is on the horizon. This highlights the theme of Peace: Finding a Point of Resolution for Past Traumas.

“My Bree. I missed her so desperately I thought I’d die those first few weeks. But I hadn’t died.”

Archer forces himself to stay away from Bree and live an independent life. He proves to himself that he can live a normal life and exist autonomously from Bree. This liberates Archer from social dependence and creates an apotheosis in his character development.

“He looked so lonely, so sad. I was, too, but it suddenly occurred to me that some people go their whole lives without being loved or loving as deeply as I love you.”

Archer recognizes that he is lucky to have Bree’s love and to know that his parents loved him very much. This forms part of the falling action of the novel; knowing that he is loved drives him back to Bree and the resolution of the story.

“I had learned recently that often, love was all about learning to speak a person’s language.”

Archer is wiser from his time alone and learns to interact with others without Bree as an interpreter. Archer orders a coffee from Maggie without Bree’s help, which symbolizes his character development.

“I heard again and again that Archer’s and my story made people want to be better, to reach out to those who no one else saw, to be friends to the friendless, to look at others more closely, recognize pain when they came across it, and then do something about it if they were able.”

This quote encapsulates the message on which Sheridan ends the novel relating to the need for inclusivity, particularly for people with disabilities and survivors of trauma.

“I’m here for you. I’m here because of you. I’m here because you saw me, not just with your eyes, but with your heart.”

During his speech to the town of Pelion, Archer recognizes Bree as one of the reasons that he is able to take over the town and help the citizens. This acknowledges how sharing their trauma and trusting in each other led them to where they were that day and resolves the theme of Peace: Finding a Point of Resolution for Past Traumas.

“And I thought to myself, Archer Hale’s voice was one of the most beautiful things in the whole wide world.”

Sheridan uses the term “Archer’s voice” to describe the way Archer communicates. Bree indicates that this form of communication is what makes her love Archer so deeply.