Do you think Billie made the right decision to stay in Hutch and take care of her mother?
Absolutely! She made the right choice to stay with her mom and seize any opportunity to connect with her mom. Better late than never!
I don’t know. Billie had such potential and maybe if she’d left she would have gotten help and set on a path that used her special abilities to achieve some self worth for herself. Yes, ultimately she did achieve happiness but she was denied happiness for too much of her life.
It feels less like a “choice” and more like an obligation shaped by guilt and circumstance. It’s understandable, but also limiting. It may prevent her from discovering a life that better suits her.
Yes, she finally was having a connection with her mom. For a short term I think it’s good. Baby steps forward!
She made the best decision for herself. I did not want her to join Clayton for Colorado as that would have been a misadventure. Her life wouldn’t have been too keen unless she eventually found a way to dump Clayton. Given a possible bad scenario in Colorado, Billie would have felt tremendous guilt had she left her mom under those conditions.
Although there were negatives to this decision, I think it was what was right for her at the time.
One has to remember the time period the book is set in–Billie didn’t really have a choice but stay in Hutchinson but she also saw that was the only chance she’d ever have to connect with her mother. She learned things about her family–though I couldn’t help but wonder what was truth & what was fiction–and had she gone with Clayton I think she would have ended up dead (he had far more problems than she did & was hardly trustworthy). Blood is pretty darn thick and really, who else did Billie have in her life at that time?
I don’t think she really had a choice because of the position she was in and they both needed each other to resolve their relationship
I think she made the right decision to stay. It gave her the opportunity to have a better relationship with her mother. If she left with Clayton who knows what would happen..
I have mixed feelings about Billie staying in Hutch and taking care of her mother. Their relationship was complicated and not healthy. I think it may have appeased some of Billie’s guilt (which she had no reason to feel) but it also held Billie back from moving on with her life.
Yes. Her mother had no one to care for her at that time. As others have mentioned, she and her mother finally became close. I do think that she should have left Hutch when she graduated from high school. I think Joan gave her good advice to go to college and become an expert on something. I feel that the school failed her again by not helping her find financial support for college.
Yes, she did. I didn’t trust Clayton. He was immature, and from the number of times the author mentioned his beer drinking, I think that could have been a big problem. Just as she enjoyed the precision and logic of bookkeeping, I think Billie needed that kind of structure in her life.
Yes, she made the right choice to stay and take care of her mother. Although her mother didn’t show her any affection, she chooses to take care of her. I didn’t think her, running off to Colorado with Clayton would be a good decision. I think it would have been disastrous to be with Clayton. he was an alcoholic and pretty much a stranger who made unsafe choices.
I absolutely think she made the correct decision. If she had left her mother and gone with Clayton, I think she would have become consumed with guilt, knowing that her mother would probably have been placed in a county facility since there was was no one else to care for her. By staying with her mother she developed a closeness and and a bond that had been missing throughout her childhood.
I’m not sure of this. She was able to build a type of bond with her mother, but I feel she did that out of a bit of guilt. She had a chance to start over and find comfort in herselt and stayed to support her mother. I feel that parental guilt can stagger one.