Safe Haven

“She didn’t have a television, a radio, a cell phone, or a microwave or even a car, and she could pack all her belongings in a single bag. She was twenty-seven years old, a former long-haired blond, with no real friends. She’d moved here with almost nothing, and months later she still had little.”

Like the previous quote, this also suggests that Katie is on the run and has a dark past. Here, however, the quote addresses her isolation in her past and the idea that she might have to pack up and leave at any moment, suggesting a woman who is being hunted. The reader can only wonder at this point who or what is hunting her.

“It was inevitable, of course, but somehow it didn’t seem right to Alex that they would never remember the sound of Carly’s laughter, or the tender way she’d held them as infants, or know how deeply she’d once loved them.”

Alex reflects on the fact that his children were only two and four when their mother died. Therefore, they would not remember her with the same clarity with which he remembers her. He is saddened by this, and it motivates him to find another woman to fill the role of mother and to be the same sort of tender, loving person that Carly was.

“So why had it felt like Jo was trying to bring them together?”

Katie suspects that Jo is pushing her toward Alex. This suspicion will be proven correct at the end of the novel. At this point, Katie believes that Jo is merely a grief counselor who wants to see everyone happy. Nevertheless, their conversations leave Katie open to the idea of a relationship with Alex, even though dating is the last thing on her mind.

“As horrible as her life had been, she’d loved assembling the pieces of her household, but as with everything she’d left behind, she now viewed them as enemies that had gone over to the other side.”

Even though the reader still doesn’t know the details of Katie’s past, this quote illustrates what she left behind and how she feels about that life. As the novel progresses, this information will also connect with thoughts Kevin has about how much Erin loved their home and how he bought it just to make her happy. The dream home and everything inside it are merely reminders of the trauma she suffered as Kevin’s wife.

“He always apologized, and sometimes he would even cry because of the bruises he’d made on her arms or legs or her back. He would say that he hated what he’d done, but in the next breath tell her she’d deserved it. That if she’d been more careful, it wouldn’t have happened. That if she’d been paying attention or hadn’t been so stupid, he wouldn’t have lost his temper.”

Katie tells this story to Jo, using the guise of a friend to pretend the abuse didn’t happen to her. Her statements touch on a common element of domestic abuse in which the victim often blames themselves for what happens. Katie will show behavior later in the novel that suggests she did, to a certain extent, believe the abuse happened because of who she was or how she behaved, harkening back to this discussion.

“Both of us know that if I’d asked if you wanted the bicycle, you would have said no. So, like Joyce did with me, I just went ahead and did it because it was the right thing to do. Because I learned that it’s okay to accept some help every now and then.”

Alex makes this statement after Katie confronts him for giving her too many things for free and without her consent. He expresses the fact that everyone needs help once in a while, and this is the catalyst that finally allows Katie to open up to Alex and his children, and to stop being afraid to trust someone. In time, this will allow her to open herself up to a relationship and to hope.

“She shook her head as she started arranging everything, thinking that Alex somehow forgot that his kids were still little. There was more food here than she’d kept in her house the entire time she’d lived in Southport.”

Katie sees the excess with which Alex has packed for a barbecue on the beach. This illustrates her struggle since coming to Southport without money and without knowing where her next meal was coming from. It also hints at something that will be revealed later in the novel: the fact that her husband kept such a tight rein on finances that she had to be very careful about the food she purchased and how much she spent on it. With Alex, she notes something that might be normal to him but is strangely odd to her.

“‘Your dad doesn’t yell?’

‘No,’ he said with great conviction.

‘What does he do when he gets mad?’

‘He doesn’t get mad.’

Katie studied Josh, wondering if he was serious before realizing that he was.

In Katie’s experience up to this point, when a man got angry, he became violent. When she was 12, her father hit her with a snow globe while arguing with her mother; as a wife, she was routinely beaten by her alcoholic husband. It is a foreign idea to her that a man might be capable of refraining from violence and demonstrative anger. This conversation highlights how different Alex is from what Katie has always known.

“He wished she would trust him with the details of her past, not because he was under the illusion that he could somehow rescue her or felt that she even needed to be rescued, but because giving voice to the truth of her past meant opening the door to the future. It meant they would be able to have a real conversation.”

Alex’s thoughts on Katie illustrate that he’s already figured out that Katie does have a dark past. This quote directly addresses the old idea that a woman in distress needs a man to rescue her. The novel deals with centuries-old themes, but Sparks adds a new twist by placing Alex firmly in a supporting role. The reader will see at the end of the novel that Katie does not need anyone to rescue her, and these thoughts on Alex’s part set that revelation up.

“He wasn’t exactly sure when it happened. Or even when it started. It may have been the morning when he’d seen Kristen holding Katie after Josh had fallen in the river, or the rainy afternoon when he’d driven her home, or even during the day they had spent at the beach. All he knew for sure was that right here and now, he was falling hard for this woman, and he could only pray that she was feeling the same way.”

The author boldly announces the moment Alex falls in love with Katie in this quote, which showcase his feelings and his continued doubts about Katie’s feelings for him. Katie is difficult to read, and even Alex struggles understanding her thoughts and feelings. But this is a turning point in the novel: the point where the reader knows as well as Alex that there is no going back when it comes to this budding relationship.

“Most of the time, they had to eat in, but he liked restaurant-type meals, with a main course and two side dishes and sometimes a salad. He refused to eat leftovers and it was hard to make the budget stretch. She had to plan the menu carefully, and she cut coupons from the newspaper.”

Katie explains to Alex what kind of a man Kevin was using anecdotes about their final days together. This comment shows how controlling Kevin was with money and household chores. It also illustrates how different Katie’s life with Kevin was compared to her life now and to how Alex lives.

“She said nothing. Couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t breathe. She bit her lip to keep from screaming and wondered if she would pee blood tomorrow. The pain was a razor, slashing at her nerves, but she wouldn’t cry because that only made him angrier.”

This is one of the book’s more visceral descriptions of abuse. Katie talks about her actions just after Kevin exploded on her and punched her several times in the back. This illustrates how terrorized she was and how Kevin controlled everything about her life, right down to her emotions.

“For months, she’d tried to block out the specific memories, focusing only on the fear that had been left behind. She didn’t want to remember Kevin, didn’t want to think about him. She wanted to erase him entirely, to pretend he never existed. But he would always be there.”

Katie describes the power Kevin still possesses over her, despite her strong desire to move on. This statement illustrates Katie’s feelings toward her marriage—a life that was only filled with fear. It also foreshadows the inevitable moment when she will have to face Kevin again. Ironically, this thought occurs to her as she sits on the same porch that will later be the site of her final confrontation with Kevin.

“Watching her, he would sometimes be overcome with an overwhelming rage at Kevin Tierney. Such men’s instincts to victimize and torture were as foreign to him as the ability to breathe underwater or fly; more than anything, he wanted revenge. He wanted justice.”

Here, the author again shows the differences between Alex and Kevin. The quote touches back on the conversation between Katie and Josh, illustrating the fact that Alex is a normal person who feels strong emotions, but he is mature enough and strong enough to know how to control and channel them. Alex clearly loves Katie, and he wants justice for what has been done to her, but once again, he makes it clear he has no plan to rescue her. He only wishes for her to have what she deserves.

“She snapped the scissors. ‘I loved you!’ She sobbed. ‘You promised me you’d never hit me again and I believed you! I wanted to believe you!’”

Katie yells these words at the mirror as she prepares to leave Kevin. These words are the first steps Katie will take in becoming stronger and more independent. She shows anger against her abuser, defying his mandate that she not show emotion, and it foreshadows the words she will say to him during their final confrontation.

“In the months that Erin had been gone, he felt the ache inside grow more poisonous and all-consuming, spreading like a cancer every day.”

This is a surprisingly insightful observation on Kevin’s part. He misses Erin, and the ache of that loss is growing “like a cancer.” His delusion that she loved him also grows. Kevin continues to insist that he gave her a good life and can get her back—a delusion that grows every day and threatens the lives of Erin, Alex, and Alex’s children.

“This he knew: she wasn’t running any longer. She wouldn’t move from place to place or job to job forever. It wasn’t like her. She liked nice things and wanted to have them around her. Which meant she had to be using someone else’s identity. Unless she was willing to live a life continually on the run, she needed a real birth certificate and a real social security number.”

Kevin shows that he might be a pretty good detective with this quote. He has figured out that Erin must be living under a false name somewhere; he simply got her motives wrong. It wasn’t a desire to have nice things around her that kept Erin in one place, but a lack of money and connections to the people around her. However, he has found the clue that will eventually lead him to Southport.

“The articles were heavy with meaning and memories, and since Carly’s death, Alex had added nothing to the safe, except for the letters that Carly had written. One had been addressed to him. The second had no name on it, however, and it remained unopened. He couldn’t open it—a promise, after all, was a promise.”

Alex introduces the letters Carly wrote not long before she died: one for him and one for the woman he would one day fall in love with. These are Carly’s last wish for Alex and the kids. She wants him to find a woman to fill the place she left behind with her death.

“Erin knew them and visited them, even though she’d never mentioned going to their house. He’d called her and dropped by unexpectedly and she’d always been home, but somehow, he’d never found out. She’d never told him and when he’d complained that they were bad neighbors, she’d never said a word. Erin had a secret.”

Kevin’s own words show how he controlled Erin’s life, calling her all day long and stopping by unexpected. However, he presents these actions as though they were normal things to do. Erin made friends with the neighbors, and he didn’t know, a fact that makes him angry. His thoughts on this matter show how controlling he was and how he felt it was a normal way to act, while Katie knows it was far from normal.

“He’d wanted to keep his mind sharp, but his head had begun to pound and he’d been sick to his stomach, so he’d stopped at a liquor store and bought a bottle of vodka. It numbed the pain, and as he sipped it through a straw, all he could think about was Erin and how she’d changed her name to Katie.”

This is the beginning of Kevin’s trek to North Carolina. The fact that he stopped drinking for a short time and it brought on symptoms that are likely from withdrawal, illustrate how bad his alcoholism has become. He is on his way to Katie, feeling betrayed and drinking—two elements that foreshadow trouble.

“He hated her. But he wanted her, too. Loved her. It was hard to keep it straight in his head.”

Kevin’s thinking begins to become muddled. Here, he thinks about how Katie has moved on with her life without him, likely laughing at him. His lack of confidence makes him believe she is ridiculing him behind his back—a fact that reflects his mental and emotional deterioration.

“They were sweating together now, somewhere, writhing in sheets, bodies intertwined. Coffey and Ramirez were laughing about that, slapping their thighs, having a good old time at his expense.”

Kevin’s thoughts about Erin and Alex blend with his insecurities regarding his coworkers. This shows how Kevin’s delusions are taking over and becoming his reality, even though he has no evidence that any of this is happening. This comment leads into Kevin’s thoughts about shooting up his workplace, showing how unhinged he has become.

“In her dream, Jo wasn’t smiling as she sat beside Katie on the Ferris wheel. She seemed to be searching the crowd below, a frown of concentration on her face.

There, she said, pointing. Over there. Do you see him?

What are you doing here? Where’s Kristen?

She’s sleeping. But you have to remember, now.”

Katie falls asleep on Alex’s couch, and her subconscious tries desperately to help her remember that she saw Kevin in the crowd while she was on the Ferris wheel. The fact that Jo shows up in her dream to help her figure it out might seem like a coincidence. But the reader might come to a different conclusion at the end of the novel when they realize that Jo and Carly are the same person. Read through the lens of this revelation, Jo/Carly takes on the characteristics of a guardian angel.