Clock Dance

Saguaro cacti represent Willa’s perception of herself. Willa’s backyard saguaros are “the only things in Arizona she felt a deep attachment to” (115). Before leaving for Baltimore, Willa visits these plants, admiring “their dignity, their endurance” (115)—qualities Willa most aspires to herself.

Later, when Peter brings Willa a small saguaro from the hospital gift shop, Willa is taken aback by its size: “Ordinarily, they’re huge. Twenty or thirty feet tall, at least” (145), she says “protectively, almost defensively” (145). Willa has always imagined these cacti as independently powerful: “Saguaros were calm and forbearing; they had stoically weathered everything from Apache arrows to strip malls” (145). Now, she must confront the fact that even these hardy plants need nurture and care before they can thrive. Willa has always tried to be as enduring and calm as these giant cacti, facing hardships with dignity and fortitude. But her identification with these desert plants ignores their literally prickly nature—no saguaro can be touched, much as Willa has built herself a protective shell of martyrdom.

When Willa gives Cheryl instructions about caring for the small saguaro, she explains that “[i]t can stand a lot, remember; it doesn’t need to be pampered” (278). Willa too has realized that she must accept tenderness, not just be invisible in the lives of those she cares about.

Willa first encounters a sad, abandoned toy after Peter flies home without her: While driving by herself for the first time in ages, Willa observes “the stuffed rabbit that had been sitting at the corner for the past two days holding a cardboard sign that asked ‘Did You Lose Me?’” (211). This rabbit symbolizes Willa in this transitional period of her life, on her own without a controlling husband. Like the rabbit, Willa feels lost: As Peter leaves, Willa wonders, “What am I doing here? she thought. Where, even, am I?” (202). Willa is unsure what she wants or where she belongs.

As Willa gradually learns how to be independent, the lost toy disappears: “[T]he stuffed rabbit on the corner had been claimed at last, or else discreetly discarded” (251). These two possibilities represent the two directions Willa could go once her time in Baltimore ends. She can either stay with the people who have “claimed” her, Denise and Cheryl, or she can return home to Arizona where her needs and desires will continue to be passively disregarded by Peter. Willa faces this decision in the final chapter, when she lands in Arizona. She chooses to be claimed by those who love her and flies back to Baltimore.