How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
My mom is hardly ever home because of working so much and I don't think Dad has touched me since puberty, even before Tommy. Lee's mom […] hugs me more than anyone in my own family. (2.44)
Whenever she needs affection, Deanna has to go elsewhere—Lee's mom, Jason's mom, even Tommy's car. Her dad can't deal with his daughter growing up, and it's easier to ignore her than talk (let alone listen) to her.
Quote #2
This was my memory, I think. I remember going to the lake. I remember pink popcorn. I don't know if those things happened at the same time, or if my father was even really there. (2.185)
It's been so long since Deanna's father has been part of her life that she's not sure which memories are true. No wonder she craves affection.
Quote #3
I kept my mouth shut. I didn't get involved in their fights. It's pointless, and anyway, if I take sides my dad starts saying everyone is against him and it just makes things worse. (3.46)
Deanna's dad is another man she allows to take away her power—his needs come first, and never mind about hers. This is a constant, destructive pattern in her life.
Quote #4
Ever since Tommy, Darren was a little on the overprotective side, always watching guys watching me. (3.112)
Darren beat up Tommy when he found out Tommy had been sleeping with Deanna. Would Tommy have told lies about their night together if Darren hadn't beat him up?
Quote #5
I imagined my dad watching us on a surveillance camera, staring in surprise as we innocently watched TV instead of making out or snorting coke or piercing each other's nipples or whatever it was my dad thought I did with my spare time. (3.159)
For someone who's so disappointed in his daughter's bad reputation, Deanna's dad doesn't really do anything to keep it from happening again. If he does think that's what she's doing with Jason, he's obviously written her off altogether. She might as well just go ahead and do it, since it's what everyone expects of her—except she doesn't, because she still has that teeny-tiny glimmer of hope for a better future.
Quote #6
What if National Paper had never laid my dad off? Would that have made it easier for him to be the other kind of father? (5.25)
Sometimes our anger at others is actually anger at ourselves. If Deanna's dad hadn't been laid off and felt like he failed his family, he might not have given Deanna such a hard time about failing him.
Quote #7
If I were a different kind of sister, a better kind, I would have hugged him and told him everything would be okay. Maybe if we were out of my parents' house, in our own place, we could be that kind of family. But here, we were the same old Lamberts we'd always been. (7.13)
Deanna withholds affection not just from her father, but from the rest of her family members in his presence. There's a whole lot of stifled emotion going down at the Lamberts' house… and not nearly enough hugs.
Quote #8
Sometimes I wonder, you know, what's wrong with some families […] I look at people like Lee […] and I know that's how a family should be, and I realize how f***ed up it is to not be talking to each other and to be blaming each other and not wanting to know anything about your own grandkid. (7.15)
Just as Deanna's dad doesn't want to know anything about her life, he doesn't want to know anything about April's. It's like if a person reminds him of something he doesn't want to think about, he just cuts them off.
Quote #9
The last three years could be a bad memory. I could say, Dad, let's just try, and he could look at April in his arms and nod quietly, and everything could be different, couldn't it? (7.45)
Deanna sympathizes with April, because her dad ignores April too—so when she sees her dad holding April, she imagines that maybe he wants to hold her too.
Quote #10
I know that having faith in your family isn't the same as God or religion or whatever, but I could kind of get what Lee meant about believing in something when it made more sense not to. (12.56)
Faith is a belief that things can turn out better even when there are no signs indicating that they will. It's all a lot of people have to keep them going. Deanna's mom's affection keeps Deanna's glimmer of hope alive—in this case, it's hope that someone in her family might eventually love her and pay attention to her again.