The Things We Leave Unfinished

The gazebo, upon its first introduction, symbolizes Scarlett and Jameson’s love. For Georgia specifically, it represents the pain of being abandoned by someone you love; she tells Noah the gazebo is “sturdy. Solid. The sorrow, the longing, the ache that eats you up after the missed chance…those make fine supports. Those are the emotions that last the test of time” (169). She uses the gazebo to explain how the hurt over her mother’s abandonment, and later Damian’s, have become structural parts of her being, so, in that way, the gazebo represents Georgia’s loss of love as well.

After the reveal about Gran’s identity as Constance, the gazebo takes on a different meaning. Now, it represents Constance’s efforts to rebuild in Colorado and become part of Jameson’s family, who have taken in her and William. Constance has suffered her own losses, so the gazebo may be a place she remembers Scarlett and Jameson as she writes. Yet as Gran is writing romances with happy endings when she takes her typewriter to the gazebo, she gives her fictional characters the satisfying resolution that is not guaranteed in real life. In this respect, the gazebo represents Constance’s independence, resilience, and redesign of her life, taking over her sister’s legacy and making it her own.

Glass becomes a symbol for Georgia and her character growth in the course of the novel. She attended a prestigious art school and was accomplished enough in the art of glass blowing that one of her sculptures was purchased for an office building in Manhattan. Georgia let go of her hobby during her marriage, indicating that Damian was the wrong person for her, as he allowed that spark to go out. When she is free of Damian and seeking to rebuild her life, Georgia leases a space, buys the equipment, and sets up a glass-blowing studio in Poplar Grove as an indication that she means to establish her home there.

Her return to glass-blowing as her love affair with Noah progresses shows that Georgia is reclaiming her passion and getting in touch with her truest self. The success of her studio opening, in that she sells all the pieces she put up for sale, illustrates the fulfillment she finds in this creative work. Through these efforts she is able to come to terms with her life experiences, as shown by the glass crown she creates as a display object to represent the freezing of her emotional and creative life while married to Damian. Noah’s love melts her ice, but the sculpture serves as reminder of what she has survived and overcome.