Sadie

“Mattie used to say it was my stubbornness, not my stutter, that was my worst quality, but one wouldn’t exist without the other.” 

Sadie is defined by others by her stutter as her dominant, negative quality. Mattie, who knew Sadie best, believed that Sadie’s stubbornness held her back more than her stutter. Sadie contends that her stutter forced her to develop a tough, determined, and stubborn personality, so that she could fight back against the challenges she faced.

“You owe it to yourself to dig a little deeper. Don’t decide what you don’t have before you know what you do.” 

Danny must convince West to pursue his investigation of Sadie’s disappearance after West dismisses the idea as insufficiently interesting. This symbolizes the tendency of the dominant culture to disregard the importance of marginalized groups like young, poor, rural women. West makes a snap assessment of Sadie’s situation, and Danny is wise enough to force West to look beyond that impulse. 

“You never let me dye my hair, she’d whine in her thin voice and by thin, I don’t mean papery or weak. It just never came completely into itself. When she laughed, it would go so shrill and hurt my ears but I’m not complaining because when Mattie laughed, it was like being on a plane at night, looking down on some city you’ve never been to and it’s all lit up.” 

Throughout the story, Sadie describes how much Mattie meant to her in beautiful language and imagery. Sadie often talks about Mattie in terms of light, symbolizing how Mattie brought joy to Sadie’s life. This description of Mattie’s voice never having the chance to come completely into itself is a sign of Sadie’s grief over Mattie’s life being cut short.

“She was teased by her classmates because of the stutter and that caused her to withdraw.… […] Add to that a mother who was largely unreceptive to any of our concerns and, well. It’s not a recipe for a child’s personal success.” 

Sadie’s first grade teacher explains to West the circumstances around Sadie’s childhood. As a bullied child who had no support from her parent, and in a poor town with no resources, Sadie withdrew to deal with the pain. This shows that Sadie’s suffering molded her into the person the reader encounters and that she had little chance to overcome her lack of opportunities.

“But imagine having to live every day knowing the person who killed your sister is breathing the air she can’t, filling his lungs with it, tasting its sweetness.” 

This passage demonstrates Sadie’s obsession with killing Keith. She cannot bear that a wonderful person like Mattie, the light of her life, has been robbed of existence. Meanwhile, the monster who killed her and grievously injured Sadie is free to live and breathe. The injustice and unfairness of this are intolerable to Sadie, so she feels compelled to end Keith’s life.

“I can’t—if Claire hadn’t sent that—if she coulda just made a clean break, I think eventually Mattie would’ve come to terms with it. But she had to screw things up all the way from L.A., and that’s what Sadie and Mattie were fighting about the night Mattie disappeared.” 

May Beth lays the blame for Mattie’s death squarely on Claire for sending the postcard. May Beth considers Claire insufferably selfish and blind to the needs of her daughters, as she managed to harm them from over a thousand miles away. This passage demonstrates the tension between Sadie and Mattie that resulted from the arrival of the postcard.

“I want to live my life on the internet. Everything is perfect there.” 

Sadie doesn’t have a cell phone, so she has to visit a public library to get on the internet and track down Silas. She discovers Kendall’s Instagram, with its beautiful images of Kendall’s seemingly perfect life. Sadie contrasts this with her own grueling existence which is mired in dismal reality.

“‘She’s dead,’ I whisper […] it hurts to say it, to feel the truth of those words pass my lips, to have them be real in this world. But She’s dead is the reason I’m still alive. She’s dead is the reason I’m going to kill a man. How many people live with that kind of knowledge inside them?” 

As Sadie watches Kendall and Noah stumble home drunk, she is overwhelmed by the injustice of these two existing while she has been robbed of her sibling. Sadie recognizes that the only reason she is still alive herself is so she can kill Keith. At this moment, Sadie experiences the revelation of her reason for living—a profound epiphany few people ever know.

“Other times, I can only feel the weight of it, all of it, of every Sadie I’ve been, every choice that she’s made, and everything she could have possibly gotten so wrong that she’d end up here. Now. Like this. Alone.” 

Sadie feels both emptiness over Mattie’s death and a great weight of responsibility. Here, she speaks of herself in the third person, as someone who endlessly examined her life and found all the instances and situations in which she made choices that she now sees as mistakes. These multitudes of memories combine into an overwhelming guilt for not having prevented Mattie’s death and for having brought about this reality in which she herself is alone, without Mattie.

“I thought, This is what it feels like to be a daughter. I thought, God, no wonder Mattie loves Mom.” 

Sadie felt neglected and unloved by her mother her entire life. She holds this memory like a precious jewel; it is the one time that Claire made her feel cherished and loved. Sadie shows in this passage that part of her hurt over her mother’s rejection is that she was shown in this instance how extraordinary it feels to be the recipient of motherly love, even though she has otherwise been denied Claire’s affection. Sadie also understands through this experience why Mattie clung so hard to her love for Claire.

“The beauty of childhood is not entirely grasping the cost of living; food just appears in the fridge, you have a roof over your head because everyone does and electricity must be some kind of sorcery, like right out of Harry Potter or something, because who could ever put a price on light?”

Sadie reminisces in this passage about the time in her life when she did not bear the burden of financial responsibility for her family. When she was very young, Sadie did not yet understand the causes and effects of poverty. Sadie had to learn from a too-early age how precarious her family’s situation was.

“It all suddenly, and belatedly, felt too real, the things these girls had gone through, what can happen to missing girls.” 

Meeting Cat makes West realize that he had not considered the real-life horrors that runaway and missing girls endure. Up to that point, it had just been a hypothetical story to him. Cat “successfully” returned home, but not without experiencing fear and danger. This makes West worry about what Sadie also endured.

“Why do you think I got clean? You said it yourself—Mattie was dead. I knew Sadie was here alone. I wanted to be with her.” 

Claire went to rehab and returned to Cold Creek because she knew that Sadie, alone without Mattie, would be devastated. With Mattie dead, Claire realized that all she and Sadie have left are each other and she couldn’t waste any more time working on reconciliation. This passage is part of the “real” Claire that the reader sees for the first time.

“Sadie. I drop the tag and root through my backpack until I find what I’m looking for. The picture. The picture of him, Mattie, Mom and me and there it is, on me. That shirt on me.” 

In this climatic scene, Sadie realizes that the picture she’s been carrying around to identify Keith is much more consequential than she had known. The photo ties together her present quest with the trauma of her past. The tag, torn from the shirt she is wearing in the picture and bearing her name in black ink, is physical proof of the crime committed against her. 

“So I guess it’s lucky I arrive when I do.”

West says that it is “lucky” that he arrives at the Bluebird Motel before it’s demolished. The idea of “luck” in the sequence of events that leads West down Sadie’s trail is an interesting element to the story, as his clues often depend on luck and timing. If May Beth had not found Cat’s credit card, West would not have learned that Sadie went to the Bluebird Motel.

“I have risked everything for this kindness, or whatever it is, and that makes me worry that I’m too starved, too broken, to do anything right.” 

Sadie is angry with herself that she couldn’t kill Ellis, since he may prevent her from reaching Keith. Sadie doesn’t see what she did as an inherently good, kind action, but as a sign that she’s too flawed to make the right decisions. This attitude expresses how beaten down and lost Sadie has become.

“When Mattie was seven days old, and I was six, I stood over her crib and listened to her breathing, watching the rise and fall of her tiny chest. I pressed my palm against it and I felt myself through her. She was breathing, alive. And I was too.” 

In this section, Sadie remembers Mattie and herself at various ages when consequential events occurred. This was the first life-changing moment for Sadie, when she witnessed evidence that Mattie was alive: her breathing. Through this sign of Mattie’s life force, Sadie felt truly alive for the first time.

“I hate looking at it because it reminds me of Silas Baker, out there, still. But maybe after Keith, I could go back. Get it right this time.”

Sadie cannot bear looking at her own face because the bruises and cuts came from Silas. This is a very interesting passage because, for the first and only time, Sadie thinks about what she will do after killing Keith. Previously, her plans ended with Keith, but now Sadie regrets having failed to stab Silas and wants to rectify her mistake.

“I’m going to save you, Nell. I’m going to save you, but everything after that, I think, is beyond saving. I can stop Keith but I can’t undo everything that’s already been done.” 

Sadie desperately wishes to save Nell from Keith to make up for all the girls, including herself, that she couldn’t save. Sadie realizes that because Keith abused Nell, too much damage has already been done. This mirrors the damage Keith has already done to Sadie, which cannot be undone by killing him.

“I’m on the ground, my head firing thought after thought that can’t seem to complete themselves and they all begin with Mattie … And they never seem to end.”

Sadie’s last thoughts as she loses consciousness after Keith strikes her in the head are of Mattie. This signifies how crucial Mattie was to Sadie. Sadie has gone through many new experiences and met many new people, but at the crux of her consciousness, there is only Mattie. 

“If I’m being honest, the enormity of what Claire revealed to me in that orchard still hasn’t hit me yet: She was never in L.A. Sadie sent the postcard.” 

In another pivotal scene in the story, West realizes that Sadie sent the postcard. Until this moment, West and May Beth did not understand Sadie’s motivations in running away or why she followed her path. Sadie’s tremendous guilt for her misguided attempt to help Mattie, which resulted in her death, is the driving force behind Sadie’s quest.

“It’s hard to think of her, so vulnerable and so alone.” 

This passage demonstrates West’s personal involvement in his investigation. He has never met Sadie, but he fears for her and hates to think of how she felt as she arrived at Keith’s house, injured, guilt-stricken, and alone. West recognizes that Sadie is just a kid who was forced to take on terrible burdens that no kid should have to endure.

“You call it The Girls and you make sure the people who hear it, you make sure they know Sadie loved Mattie with everything she had. You let them know that she loved Mattie so much, that’s what she turned her love into.” 

Sadie may not have known how much Claire loved her, but it is clear from these passages that Claire loves Sadie fiercely. Despite her many shortcomings, Claire is still a mother, who watched with pride as Sadie took care of Mattie and loved her with all her being. Claire’s addiction prevented her from showing Sadie how she felt, but she wants West’s listeners to see Sadie as she saw her.