The Keeper of Happy Endings

In the weeks following her arrival, things remain unchanged with Owen as he is civil but largely ignores Soline. She grows close to Thia, teaching her French and bonding over their shared loved of drawing and art. Soline is “uncomfortable moving about the house, as if I’m somewhere I don’t belong—a trespasser” (205), but her one comfort is Thia. She has come to view her as a sister. Owen ignores Thia, too, and Soline sees in her “the deep sadness of a child who knows she isn’t loved” (206). Thia wears plain clothes that she has outgrown, and Soline devises a plan to ask Owen if she can sew some dresses for Thia out of her late mother Lydia’s old clothing. He protests at first but then agrees, and Soline sees it as a way to show her gratitude for having a place to stay. She wants to help Thia and also keep herself busy until Anson returns.

Soline shows Thia the dresses she’s been working on and Thia is overjoyed. Owen has been spending evenings away and does not eat with them anymore. One night, Owen confronts Soline about her relationship with Anson, questioning its legitimacy and also criticizing his son for not joining the US Navy, as was the family’s legacy. He accuses Anson of not doing any real fighting in the war. Owen lectures her on the role that he expects Anson to fill when he returns home, telling her that the Purcell name “is synonymous with respectability, with honor and service” (217). He means to make Anson choose between Soline and his family and has instructed him to call off the wedding. She is again reminded that she is an outsider and that Owen has no intention of making her a part of their family.

Soline moves through her days in isolation, “unmoored from [her] own world and a stranger in Anson’s” (219). One day, Soline finds Owen in her room, drunkenly going through her dress box. Seeing the exquisite gown, he accuses her of using Anson as a meal ticket and fabricating her dire circumstances that led her to America. He sees the shaving kit as well and takes it from Soline, slapping her and telling her that nothing of theirs belongs to her. He then hands her a telegram that is dated four days ago informing him that Anson has been reported missing after failing to return from a transport mission. Owen explains that he made calls to his connections in Washington and heard that someone reported seeing a pair of German soldiers marching a man who matched Anson’s description into the woods after finding an abandoned ambulance with substantial amounts of blood in it. Soline attempts to comfort Owen in their shared grief but he tells her to get away. Suddenly overcome with nausea, she rushes to the bathroom and is sick. In that moment, she realizes that she is pregnant.

Soline wakes in the night and goes to Anson’s childhood room, where she longs to find a picture of him to keep in the locket. She cries when she goes through his Yale yearbook, overcome with sadness “for promises that will never be kept and good that will never be done. For a child who will never know its father” (230). She accidentally falls asleep, and Owen finds her there, furious that she was going through Anson’s things. She tells him that she’s pregnant, and again he accuses her of scheming to take advantage of Anson and his family’s wealth and name. Owen tells her that the child “will never be a Purcell—in name or anything else” and that she and the baby are not welcome in his home (233), and they may never speak of any connection to Anson or his family. In addition to sending Thia away to boarding school in Connecticut and refusing to tell her about the telegram and the baby, Owen shares that he will make arrangements for Soline to be connected with a doctor in Providence to find a family for the baby. Owen threatens that if she ever speaks of Anson’s name, he will ruin her; Soline, knowing that she has no other option, accepts the ultimatum.

After telling Rory the story of her arrival in America, Soline recounts what happened after she arrived at Family Aid Society, a home for unwed mothers. The shaving kit was returned to her dress box, but Owen did not let her say goodbye to Thia. Soline describes when she gave birth to a baby girl, a month too soon, and how the nurses told her that she was too small to survive and had gone to be with the angels. She would have named her daughter Assia. Rory is awed by Soline’s strength in the face of such tremendous losses and how “[o]ut of nothing but grief, she forged a life” (239).

Soline recalls being in Boston only a few weeks, desperate to find work. Helped by a patisserie owner, she connects with Myles Madison, the finest tailor in Boston, who goes by Maddy. His store caters to a very affluent clientele, but he has recently lost all his business due to a scandal: After unexpectedly running into a prominent client and politician at a bar for gay men, Maddy denied his unwanted advances and the client’s wife spread salacious lies that led to Maddy being ostracized. When Maddy tells Soline this, he expects her to be shocked, explaining that now there is no work for “men like me” who are treated like pariahs (248). However, she’s not shocked after everything that she has experienced in Nazi-occupied Paris, telling him that “men like him are rounded up and put in camps, where they are beaten and starved and murdered” (248). She encourages him that as long as he is alive, he can start again and should not indulge in self-pity. She shares her life story with him, leaving nothing out, knowing that she can trust him: “[W]e become family, kindred spirits bound by loss and loneliness” (250). Soon, Maddy expands the shop to include women’s clothing and eventually couture gowns handsewn by Soline in a salon upstairs. Brides start clamoring to have a Roussel gown. Maddy passes away after an illness brought on by his smoking habit. He leaves all his money and the shop to Soline.

Soline called Maddy her fairy godmother, and that’s what Rory now calls Soline. She calls her to see if Soline can help her prepare for the gallery opening in October. The gallery is coming along ahead of schedule, but after Camilla offers help in the form of catering, music, or a makeover for Rory, telling her that she’s let herself get shabby, Rory instead solicits Soline’s help in revamping her wardrobe and sprucing up her appearance. Soline insists that she must find her own personal style and dress for her body type, telling Rory that “when it comes to clothes, we must always tell ourselves the truth” (259). Soline also encourages Rory to take Camilla up on her offers to help, suggesting that it could ease the tension between mother and daughter. Soline is concerned that Camilla may not like her interference but agrees to help Rory.

Rory and Soline spend the day shopping for new clothes and at the hair salon, where her long hair is transformed into a pixie cut. As Soline and Rory are about to enjoy a late lunch out, they unexpectedly run into Camilla. She is shocked by the new clothes and hair, telling Rory that “it’s rather disconcerting to not recognize your own daughter” (269). This is the first time that Camilla and Soline have met, and when Camilla joins them at the table, the three begin a tense conversation, with Soline and Camilla passive-aggressively sparring over details of Rory’s life. Soon, the conversation turns to art—what constitutes “real” art and who decides, with Camilla insisting that the masters are masters for a reason—to which Soline responds by sharing how the Nazis stole works by the “masters” like Renoir and Monet and burned entire art collections of Picasso and Dalí. She tells Camilla that the Nazis did not care about the art but rather the artists themselves: “who they loved, what they believed…what their last names were” (271). Soline concludes that “art, like all things, should be left to the beholder” (272). Camilla responds by saying that, in the frightfully conventional city of Boston, it’s best to stay in one’s own lane, especially with anything foreign. Rory is appalled by her mother’s behavior, and she confronts her. The two argue as Soline leaves the restaurant. Camilla criticizes Soline and Rory’s connection with her. Rory accuses Camilla of having a spine of steel instead of a heart as a mother should and concludes that the two should finally admit that they just don’t like each other.

Soline returns home, shaken by her experience with Camilla and attempting to ascertain what Camilla feels for her beyond wariness and distaste. She senses that Camilla views Soline as “a rival, her daughter a prize to be won or lost” (276), and Soline is an unwelcomed encroachment. Soline determines that she should not attend the gallery opening out of deference for Camilla but arranges to gift the row house to Rory. She questions what she was thinking, allowing herself to get close to Rory after so many years of walling herself off from the world in an act of self-preservation. Just as Owen saw her as an interloper in the Purcell family, Camilla views her as one here, too. Camilla mentioned the fire, and Soline reflects on the night that it happened, July 22, 1981. She was working on a dress for one of the Kennedy cousins and just needed a few hours of sleep before working again, and the fire started in the night. She remembers seeing the shop and all her dresses go up in flames and the fire engulfing her hands when she tried to save a few gowns. The last thing she remembers is being smothered by a blanket and waking up in the hospital, where she was told that she will never sew again due to the damage on her hands but that she is lucky to be alive. She ends the evening by taking pain medicine and falling asleep holding her dress box, hoping to escape her memories.