How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I haven't been Charlie's best friend since April, when he totally screwed me over and started hanging out full-time with Jenny Flick and the Detentionhead losers. Let me tell you—if you think your best friend dying is a b****, try your best friend dying after he screws you over. It's a b**** like no other. (1.1.11)
Charlie's death isn't the ultimate abandonment. That already happened when Charlie ditched Vera for new friends, and started treating her like she was his enemy instead of his best friend.
Quote #2
My mother left us when I was twelve. She found a man who was not as parsimonious as my father and they moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, which is two thousand five hundred miles away. She doesn't visit. She doesn't call. (1.3.1)
Even though she's loathe to admit it, Vera does resent her mother for leaving them behind. After all, she doesn't even make an attempt to stay in contact with her daughter or her ex-husband. She just cares about her new life.
Quote #3
With Vera, I'm trying to find ways to teach her how to grow her self-esteem. I'm not sure if it's working, but it's all I have. Because my father left when I was three, I have no idea what a father is supposed to do, so I'm winging it. (1.6.1)
Vera's dad is no stranger to parental abandonment and how it can affect your upbringing. Maybe that's why he's so protective of Vera—he wants to make sure that her self-esteem isn't damaged by her mom's absence.
Quote #4
What twelve-year-old girl whose mother just walked out doesn't want a companion who loves her no matter what happens? (1.17.8)
Vera's dad may think that volunteering with animals is a waste of time, but he understands that Vera needs unconditional love now more than ever after her mother leaves. Vera just wants to feel like she's worth sticking around for.
Quote #5
Then I think of Charlie and our first New Year's Eve apart, and how I miss him. I miss him so much, but it's confusing, because I missed him long before he was dead. (2.1.70)
Vera has extremely conflicting feelings about Charlie's death, and it's made more difficult because he abandoned her before he even died. It's hard to miss him more than she already did when he was still alive.
Quote #6
Did Dad realize he was treating this innocent puppy the way Mom had treated me my whole life? Like an unwanted extra responsibility? A pain in the ass? A mistake? (3.5.49)
When Vera brings home the abandoned little puppy, she feels a kinship with it because it's like her: a defenseless little thing who's been abandoned by its parents. But her dad just sees this as disobedience and tells Vera to take it away. Poor little puppy, and poor little Vera.
Quote #7
I fast-walked down Overlook Road in the dark, thinking of Charlie, boiling. F*** Charlie. Stupid asshole. Stupid roses. Stupid pagoda. Stupid losers. Stupid boots giving me stupid blisters. Stupid Vera Dietz. (3.9.82)
Well, that Valentine's Day surprise didn't turn out as intended. Instead of taking Vera out for a romantic evening, Charlie just drags her up to the Pagoda and ditches her for his loser friends. Smooth move, Romeo.
Quote #8
We are realizing, simultaneously, that we have never dealt with Mom leaving. We pretended—like role-playing—but we never really did anything about it. (4.1.27)
It's been years since Vera's mom left, but she and her dad never really get a chance to explore their feelings about it until they go to therapy together. It's an uncomfortable experience, but maybe they need to talk—or at least think—about it in order to move on.
Quote #9
She denied me. For all those years, as I paid her medical bills, as I filled in her 1040s and helped her with Medicare paperwork and her will. As I bought her a hospital bed, an oxygen machine, and paid for the nurse who helped her at the very end. Even as I arranged to have her cremated—her final wish—she denied me. (4.2.18)
Ken Dietz understands Vera's feelings of motherly abandonment more than she'll ever know. At his mother's funeral, he found out that she'd told all her friends that she had only two sons… excluding him. How do you cope with that kind of revelation when you've tried so hard to be a good son?
Quote #10
That night when Charlie hit me, I bisected. Half of me will never trust another living soul again. The other half already didn't. (4.6.2)
Geez, Vera already had abandonment and trust issues from her mom leaving. Did you really have to go and make it so that she became even more suspicious and guarded with people, Charlie?