Tethered
Page 25
6. Clara tells Mike that she believes in the moment (this page), and in her most difficult times, Clara reminds herself to concentrate on her breath: one-two-three, breathe. This Buddhist practice seems to have great significance in Clara’s life. What other philosophies and spiritual practices do you see at work in Clara’s daily life? Why do you think she clings to these so? What climatic moment do the episodes of one-two-three, breathe foreshadow?
7. Clara’s teen years were particularly traumatic. Clara suffered at the hands of her peers, and yet she never sought or received any guidance or support. Why do you think that Clara didn’t tell anyone about what happened with Tom and his friends in the library? Why didn’t Miss Talbot help young Clara? How has Clara changed since those days? Or does she continue to be a woman who will allow herself to be quietly victimized?
8. How does Clara’s cottage greenhouse, as revealed in chapter 10, compare to the funeral parlor’s prep room?
9. Sensible Alma Bartholomew loves Clara as if she were her own. Believing Mother Greene’s prophecy (one will die trying to kill you, one trying to save you) Alma’s fiercely protective when Mike prods Clara about Trecie. How is it that she can reconcile good sense with a belief in the sixth sense? Do you?
10. It is no small coincidence when Clara happens upon Trecie’s sister on this page. Can you think of a bizarre coincidence from your own life? Did you read about the author Amy MacKinnon’s own experience with Clara’s name and the envelope as told on her website?
11. Does Clara’s experience giving birth and then burying her daughter in a florist’s box indicate that she was always fated to be an undertaker or did it simply reinforce her choice? Do you believe in fate?
12. Like virtually everyone else in her life, Mike nearly abandons Clara when she calls to tell him she’s discovered Trecie’s sister. How do you feel about Mike after that, and was his reaction justified? What do you make of the blue macaw in the florist’s shop? Does it really speak to Clara?
13. Of all the people in the story, Clara extends herself to Mrs. Craig, mother of the decomposed Miss Craig, on this page. Why do you think she does so? Later, Clara walks to Linus’s office and hears him praying. Which man of the Bible is Linus quoting in those passages and how do that terribly put-upon man’s travails compare to Linus’s?
14. In chapter 20, Clara’s third and final story from her youth, we learn the origins of Clara’s trichotillomania, her hair-pulling. We also learn a bit more about her grandmother. While no one could agree with her methods, do you feel there’s a kernel of love in her grandmother’s actions? What’s the worst thing you’ve done in the name of love?
15. After Linus is murdered, Clara goes about the unimaginable task of preparing the body of the man whom she only then realizes she regarded as her father. She buries Linus with irises (faith, hope, wisdom), the meaning of which serves as the ultimate theme of the book. Her ministrations are tender, loving, but are they enough? Or is it too little, too late? When Alma goes to her, clearly in need of physical contact, still Clara can’t reach out to the living. Why not? How is it then that she reaches for Mike in the greenhouse?
16. As victimized as Adalia was, she was strong, too. Like her older sister Trecie, she was very protective of her younger sister, saying, Inez stays here. Does it give you any insight as to why Trecie was killed? What are other examples of characters standing up for one another?
17. Alma tells Clara that people would think Linus was unnatural (this page). What does she mean? What did you first think when you read that sentence? What would you think if someone close to you shared that he or she talked to the dead and the dead talked back?
18. The night before Clara plans to leave town, she drives to Mike’s house and imagines what their life together could be. Once she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and finally sees the multitude of bare spots along her scalp—wounds she believed she had hidden from the world—she realizes normalcy isn’t possible for her. Can a damaged soul ever recover and experience love?
19. Discuss the concept of forgiveness as illustrated by a heavy rock that, once released by the owner, then becomes weightless. Do you believe in forgiveness? How does the book’s image of the afterlife reconcile with your own? Do you believe Clara truly experienced another realm? Do you believe that any of us can?
20. What became of Clara and Mike?
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