Family memories

We manipulate our memories and they also manipulate our behavior far into the future. Things Don’t Break on Their Own by Sarah Easter Collins is about a wealthy, dysfunctional family with a controlling and abusive father. The youngest daughter rebels against the control, refusing to be complacent like her mother and sister. She sees problems and speaks out in ways that challenge family dynamics.

At age 13, Laika abruptly vanishes on the way to school the day after a difficult birthday party for the mother. The older sister, Willa, while remaining compliant with her father’s wishes, continues the search and cannot forget the bond she had with Laika.

Twenty-five years later, Willa and her husband attend a dinner party hosted by a former lover and her wife, joined by a brother and a memory expert, another brother and a woman from France. Liv, the memory researcher, points out that any group is likely to have “wildly differing memories of a single event, when you’d be right in thinking that everyone experienced the exact same thing.”

Willa’s husband is close to her abusive father and joins the man in suggesting that the sister died years earlier. Willa cannot dismiss the concerns, and asks about factors that influence memory of events and Liv points to good health and sleep as well as “state of mind, wish fulfillment, stress. Embarrassment. Humiliation. Guilt.”

Liv also explains how entire communities and consumers will shade certain memories, collectively attempting to forget and put certain difficult people behind. One character notes, “given we’re constantly bombarded with information, much of which comes with a certain agenda attached. We need to know the extent to which our memories are reliable, and, equally, the extent to which memory itself can be deliberately constructed.

The conversation triggers outbursts from two guests and helps Willa discover the truth behind her sister’s disappearance and the father’s role as he attempted to mask evidence of ugly control and abuse.

Families grow together, heal together, form memories together. Family members can break a cycle of lies, control and abuse by reckoning with the truth. Only then can painful memories be set aside, allowing forgiveness and love to thrive once again.