A Flicker in the Dark

The Prologue introduces Chloe as a young girl who is terrified of darkness and seeks protection in her father’s arms. Willingham portrays Chloe in the innocence of childhood while also employing an ominous tone that hints at the darkness that will characterize much of Chloe’s journey into adulthood. Willingham focuses on one scene of Chloe returning from a school day and feeling a rise of anxiety caused by “the shadows in the woods,” a hint at the future location of the Breaux Bridge murders (1). The scene reappears throughout the novel as Chloe grapples with her father’s horrible acts and highlights the novel’s theme of The Effects of the Past on the Present. From the novel’s beginning, Willingham releases clues in small doses throughout the text that she weaves into her portrayal of Chloe in adulthood.

Twenty years after her father’s arrest, Chloe has become a medical psychologist in Baton Rouge, away from her hometown. She meets with a teenage client named Lacey whose experience with abandonment relates to Chloe’s own experience. Through Lacey, Chloe confronts a version of her adolescent self. While Lacey relies on self-harm as a means of coping with her turbulent emotions, Chloe relies on prescription medications to numb herself. Haunted by the memories of her father’s crimes and the difficult aftermath, Chloe seeks an escape from her emotions and avoids confronting the truth. Her use of prescription medications causes Chloe to struggle with deciphering reality from fantasy. Filled with mistrust over her inability to see her father’s evil, Chloe continues to doubt herself as she questions whether her feelings are valid or misplaced.

Her desire to escape her past builds conflict with her older brother Cooper and her fiancé Daniel. As a reminder of their childhood, Cooper triggers Chloe. She maintains a distance from her brother and seeks out a relationship with Daniel, whom Willingham places in direct contrast with Cooper. As foil characters, both Daniel and Cooper seek to protect Chloe. However, while Cooper seeks to serve as Chloe’s primary protector, Daniel pushes Chloe to confront her fears. He throws her a surprise party despite her fear of darkness. When Cooper criticizes this choice, Chloe defends Daniel, an indication of her desire to move forward and begin a new life. While Willingham forges a connection between Cooper and Chloe’s childhood home, she connects Daniel to Chloe’s adult home, which they share. As she walks up the steps to her home, Chloe refers to the home as “the superficial equivalent of slathering makeup over a marbling bruise or fastening a rosary on top of a scarred wrist” (22). The rosary relates to the bracelet she notes on Lacey’s arm that covers her self-harm scars. Like Lacey, Chloe uses the home she has built with Daniel to distract others from seeing the pain that continues to haunt her. While Cooper represents Chloe’s past, Daniel represents her future.

Reflecting on Cooper’s influence over her life, Chloe blames Cooper “for making me remember myself—who I am, who our parents are” as “his mere existence is a reminder that the image I project out into the world isn’t actually real, but carefully crafted” (38-39). This image is the one she presents to Daniel in her efforts to ignore her past, demonstrating her projection as her attempt to control her reality, and reinforcing the story’s theme of Control as a Coping Mechanism. Through Cooper’s expressed disapproval of Daniel, Willingham leads the reader to question Daniel’s intentions. As the novel progresses, Willingham invites the reader to join Chloe on her journey to discover the truth about Daniel, his intentions, and his connection to her past.

Part 1 ends with a reconciliation between Cooper and Chloe. They decide to table their conflict over Daniel and use their childhood method of saying goodbye, a signal of their deep connection to the past and each other. Cooper dissolves into the darkness while Chloe returns to her party, a representation of her desire to leave the past behind and start anew with Daniel and foreshadowing of Cooper’s character development.