I find that I not only need to think deeply when I read a Picoult book, I also learn interesting facts. Two apparently happy and well adjusted teenagers were found with one shot in the head and the other fell down with a head wound. It is every parent's nightmare!
Emily, the dead girl, was her mother's pride and joy. Her mother loved her very, very much. To that, no one would dispute. But, look a little closer, did the woman love Emily as a person or as a successful image that brought her pride?
I met some one lately who was a little like Emily's mom, Melanie. This woman brought her son, Byron, to work in a non-profit book room because Byron, who was quite a scholar academically, refused to go to college and he refused to go to work. The reason for being a recluse was he could not take criticism. Since everyone who takes a hefty pay cut to work in the religious center would likely to be kind, we all hope that Byron would find the book room a safe refuge. One thing everyone observed is that Byron would not utter a single word in the presence of his mother. Did she speak on his behalf all the time? Did she make fun of his opinion? Yet when his mother stays away, he is not exactly chatty but he would talk. Did his family insist on him taking up a profession that he absolutely fears? It was obvious they have the necessary money. And Byron would qualify, with his excellent grades.
In The Pact, the last picture painted by Emily was evaluated by an expert. The skull found in her self portrait indicated possible preoccupation with death. The way that black and red were juxtaposed in the background was a documented hint about suicide. The painting of clouds and rain are drawn by people who are depressed and/or suicidal. The eyes are symbolic of a person's thoughts. In Emily's self portrait, she painted gathering downpour in the empty eye sockets. The long developed eye lashes and a highly realistic tongue sent off warning signals about sexual abuse. Apparently, victims of sexual abuse fixate on tongues, eye lashes, wedge shaped objects and belts. When someone paints a floating image, the person doesn't have a feeling of control in his or her life.
Although The Pact is probably a fictional story, it is a story that I can learn from. As parents, we should not insist on the future that we visualize on our reluctant children. Emily was bright, pretty, talented and probably had a winning personality. But she could not reconcile between an unexpected pregnancy with college, she could not face an early marriage while she dealt with the feeling of being unworthy and being dirty/tainted with an act of sex abuse years ago that she hid. She could not see how she could live the ten years between her present self and the future of being a painter. And so she planned and pressurized her beloved to kill her since she could not kill herself on her own.
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