Firefly Lane

“‘You looked lonely. Believe me, I know how that feels.’

‘You do? But you have a family.’

‘You’re so popular.’

‘Popular just means lots of people think they know you.’” 

In this exchange between young Kate and young Tully, readers are provided with a blueprint of their jealousies for the rest of the novel. Tully envies Kate her family and the security of their love, while Kate envies the appeal and charisma that Tully possesses.

“‘What matters, though, isn’t other people. That’s what I learned. Who your mom is and how she lives her life isn’t a reflection of you. You can make your own choices. And there’s nothing for you to be ashamed of. But you’ll have to dream big, Tully.’”

Mrs. Mularkey has a lasting effect on Tully. This conversation helps Tully realize her mother’s addiction and abandonment aren’t her fault and shouldn’t define her. Mrs. Mularkey also gives Tully hope and urges her to dream big. Later in the conversation, she references an anchorwoman as someone who has chased her dreams, and from that moment, Tully starts her relentless pursuit to be a star.

“‘Forever,’ she promised. ‘No matter what.’” 

When Kate and Tully are teenagers, they make a promise that they will be best friends forever. As the novel unfolds and their friendship is tested, Tully and Kate refer to this promise, using it as a reminder of their obligation to repair their relationship. 

“‘No. Look. I can’t help you.’

‘But I need you.’

‘That’s the fucking tragedy of it,’ her mother said [...]” 

This conversation between Cloud and Tully encapsulates their relationship. Cloud asks Tully to finally see that she can barely take care of herself. In this exchange, it is clear that Cloud is aware of how hurtful and damaging her behavior is for Tully. 

“Thoughts—even fears—were airy things, formless until you made them solid with your voice, and once given that weight, they could crush you.”

Tully is afraid to tell Kate about the depth of her loneliness after Gran’s passing because it might crush her. Throughout the novel, both Tully and Kate avoid voicing their fears, choosing to tuck them away and pretend they are okay. Even with each other, with whom they feel the most themselves, they hesitate to voice their most personal thoughts because those thoughts become more real and more dangerous when they’re said out loud.

“Kate paused. She had no idea how she could make her mother proud; she wasn’t like Tully. Kate had no rare gift.”

This passage highlights Kate’s insecurities regarding her mother and Tully. Kate wants to please her mother, but she often feels that she pales in comparison to Tully’s drive and ambition. Kate regularly compares herself to Tully, feeling that she lacks the same beauty, charisma, and focus.

“It would always be a part of her, a scar on her soul, but like all scars, it faded in time from a bright and burning red to a slim, silvery line that could only sometimes be seen.”

The experience of being raped forever remains with Tully. Part of Tully’s inability to let herself be vulnerable to love stems from that night in the woods. With Chad, however, that pain and fear grow dimmer with his tenderness and love. After her relationship with him, Tully is able to get physically close with men, but emotionally, other factors create obstacles.

“Twenty-five-year-old college-educated women were expected to dream of more money and higher positions on the corporate ladder and running the very companies that had refused to hire their mothers. Husbands were to be avoided in the pre-thirty years. There was always time for marriage and children; was the common refrain. You couldn’t give up you for them.”

As Kate feels drawn to marriage and children over career, she feels guilty for not wanting what women worked so hard to make possible. She feels as if the whole world, specifically her mother and Tully, believe that women should want to conquer the corporate world, and Kate feels she’s failing them because she doesn’t. Hannah emphasizes a struggle that continues for many women and men.

“What if someday the whole world loved Tully and it still wasn’t enough?”

Kate sees that part of the motivation for Tully’s drive to be a successful journalist is her desire to feel loved and accepted. Since Tully was young, she has sought solace in crowds, using them to help her feel accepted and forget being abandoned. When Chad leaves her, Tully feels he has abandoned her, too, and she is convinced that when she makes it, someone will love her. Kate worries that Tully may never be able to find that kind of peace. 

“‘I’m tired of not being good enough.’”

This statement highlights the core of Kate’s insecurity. Since she was a teenager, Kate has compared herself to Tully and fallen short in her own and others’ estimation. Kate never considered telling Johnny how she feels because she is sure she isn’t good enough for him; however, at this point in the novel, she’s fed up and has made the decision to move on, so she takes the chance.

“All her life she’d imagined love as a durable thing, a polyester emotion that could handle the wear and tear of everyday action, but now she saw how dangerous that perception was. It lulled you, put you at risk.”

In Hannah’s examination of love, which spans the entirety of the novel, she contrasts the Mularkeys’ conception of love against Tully’s. Kate, having been surrounded by the constant and reliable love of her parents, believes that love is durable. Johnny changes her conception of love: She realizes that losing him would break her and that believing his love is inevitable is dangerous because she would be blind to the possibility that he might leave. As Kate starts to gain a greater understanding of the fragility of love, she also starts to comprehend Tully’s fear of vulnerability.

“‘But I need you to be proud of me, too. No matter what I do. Or don’t do.’”

On her wedding day, Kate tells Tully that she’s proud of her successful career and asks her friend to be proud of her regardless of her path. This conversation between friends gets to the core of people’s desire for those they love to accept them. Kate struggles with insecurities, always thinking that others are better than her. In this moment, she is being vulnerable and asking her best friend to support her.

“It was in the very core of their relationship, this anxiety of hers. When things went bad, she remembered that she’d been his second choice, and no matter how often she told herself it wasn’t true, there was a slim, shadowy version of herself that believed it, worried about it.”

Kate’s jealousy of Tully and Johnny appears through much of the book. Watching Johnny pursue Tully, as well as the aftermath of their night together, convinces Kate that Johnny loved Tully first and cemented the idea that she was a consolation prize, feeding into her conception that she is inferior to Tully. Even Tully is surprised when she realizes that Johnny actually loves Kate, suggesting that she may also consider Kate inferior. Throughout their relationship, every time Tully and Johnny are together, Kate feels a pang of doubt or anxiety, and Hannah examines each character’s behavior in those moments.

“But what good was success, Tully had asked over drinks last week, if there was no one to share it with you?”

As Tully grows more successful, she feels lonelier. Since she was young, Tully has drawn people to her, and her career in journalism capitalized on that skill. However, even as a child, Tully recognized that those crowds didn’t know her and were just a distraction. The fame and money that accompany Tully’s rise to the top serve as a distraction for years, allowing Tully to neglect personal relationships outside of Kate and the Mularkeys. However, distractions often lose their effectiveness, and in her fatigue from the job, Tully can no longer pretend she doesn’t want companionship. Additionally, Tully sees how Kate and Johnny’s love has blossomed, and she is jealous that Kate has that, and she doesn’t.

“Her best friend’s smile was slow in coming. ‘Sure, Tully. Take my whole family if you want.’”

Tully is envious of Kate’s family when she lives on Firefly Lane. When Tully is welcomed into their home, she has what she describes as the best and most real year of her life. When Kate finds happiness with Johnny and their children, Tully is envious of that, too. Tully, whether intentionally or not, injects herself into their lives, especially when it comes to Marah. In this quote, Kate is hesitant to send her husband and daughter with Tully because both seem to be drawn to her. However, Kate’s loyalty to Tully is strong, and she knows that Tully will need support from people who really know her and care about her if she finds Cloud. Kate puts her friend’s feelings ahead of her own.

“But she was supposed to be writing her book. Johnny and Tully and Mom expected it of her. She expected it of herself. She’d been certain that once the boys started school she’d find the time.” 

Hannah examines the natural inclination of many to do everything and be everything. Kate is constantly in motion, taking care of household chores, shuttling children around, and volunteering to help with countless events. However, despite being utterly exhausted, she feels she is not doing enough to satisfy her family, Tully, or herself. Hannah pushes us to consider whether holding ourselves to such standards is fair or healthy.

“Then she saw it, coiled neatly at the bottom of the sack—a frayed piece of string, knotted into a circle, with two pieces of dried macaroni and a single blue bead strung on it.”

Tully gives her mother the macaroni necklace when she is 10. At the time, Cloud does not seem to value it. However, seeing the necklace among her mother’s possessions after all these years symbolizes Cloud’s affection for Tully and the possibility that they might rekindle their relationship. 

“‘I’m sorry, Katie,’ she whispered, hearing how small the words were; all her life she’d hoarded those few and simple words, kept them tucked inside her heart as if to let them out would harm her. Why, of all the lessons she should have learned from her mother, had she held on to this most hurtful one?”

Over the course of the novel, Kate continually points out that Tully does not apologize, sometimes to the detriment of her relationships. When Tully spends time with her mother at age 10, she wants desperately for Cloud to love and approve of her. After Tully apologizes to Gran, Cloud vehemently tells her to never apologize, as it makes her seem weak. For the rest of her life, Tully has avoided apologies in an effort to maintain the upper hand, at least emotionally. Readers ponder whether Tully held on to that lesson because it explains why Cloud never apologized to her for anything. This quote is also notable because it marks a change in Tully as she becomes more empathetic and less selfish.

“‘This show is, after all, just that: a show. Real life is with friends and family, and as an old friend pointed out to me a while ago: I do have a family. And she needs me now.’”

For much of Tully’s adult life, work has come first. Tully believes that people abandon you, so getting ahead ensures that you have something to hold on to when they’re gone. With Kate’s illness, Tully shifts priorities and realizes that Kate has always stood by her. Tully recognizes that it is her turn to be there for her friend, and she performs one of her first unselfish acts in leaving the show for Kate.

“As always, it fell to Kate to lead the way, to be the smiling, optimistic one. They were all okay as long as she remained strong and resilient. Then they could talk and laugh and carry on the pretense of ordinary life.”

This passage highlights a trait that Kate exhibits throughout the book. Many of her decisions or behaviors are a means to ensure that those around her are happy or satisfied. When Kate is in pain and afraid, she worries less about her own well-being and more about those around her. In part, this willingness to sacrifice for the sake of others has added to her feeling overwhelmed.

“She saw the truth in his face, heard it in the tremble in his voice, and she was ashamed of herself. She should have known this all along.”

Kate wrestles with doubt regarding her relationship with Johnny through much of the novel, believing she was his second choice and wondering if he still has feelings for Tully. In this moment, Kate feels the full force of Johnny’s love and regrets the jealousy that always tainted their connection.

“‘Here’s what I want you to know. I loved my life. For so long I was waiting for it to start, waiting for more. It seemed like all I did was drive and shop and wait. But you know what? I didn’t miss a thing with my family. Not a moment. I was there for all of it. That’s what I’ll remember, and they’ll have each other.’”

Kate’s statement reiterates themes that are especially prevalent at the end of the book: love and family. When she looks back at her life, even at the hardest or most overwhelming moments, she realizes that she was with the people that she loves, and that’s all that matters.

“‘I know I’ve spent a lot of years whining about being alone, and I’ve had a history of hooking up with inappropriate or unavailable men, but the truth is my career has been my love, and mostly it’s been enough. I’ve been happy. It’s important to me that you know that.’”

Tully’s emotional maturation throughout the end of the novel is underlined with her admission that despite all of her complaining, she has been fairly happy with her choices. Tully also recognizes Kate’s nature to worry about those that she loves, and by quelling Kate’s fears about Tully’s happiness, Tully also fulfills one of Kate’s needs and demonstrates her newfound capacity for empathy.