Lacy Houghton Character Analysis

Everyone broke up in laughter, as Lacy watched. Alex, she realized, could fit anywhere. Here, or with Lacy’s family at dinner, or in a courtroom, or probably at tea with the queen. She was a chameleon.

It struck Lacy that she didn’t really know what color a chameleon was before it started changing.

How could you change a boy’s bedding every week and feed him breakfast and drive him to the orthodontist and not know him at all?

The town of Sterling would analyze to death what she had done to her son—but what about what she would do for him? It was easy to be proud of the kid who got straight A’s and who made the winning basket—a kid the world already adored. But true character showed when you could find something to love in a child everyone else hated.

Children didn’t make their own mistakes. They plunged into the pits they’d been led to by their parents. She and Lewis had truly believed they were headed the right way, but maybe they should have stopped to ask for directions.

Dorian Gray had a portrait that grew old and evil while he remained young and innocent-looking. Maybe the quiet, reserved mother who would testify for her son had a portrait somewhere that was ravaged with guilt, twisted with pain. Maybe the woman in that picture was allowed to cry and scream, to break down, to grab her son’s shoulders and say What have you done?

“Was there ever anything in Peter’s personality that led you to believe he was capable of an act like this?”
“When you look into your baby’s eyes,” Lacy said softly, “you see everything you hope they can be… not everything you wish they won’t become.”

Everyone broke up in laughter, as Lacy watched. Alex, she realized, could fit anywhere. Here, or with Lacy’s family at dinner, or in a courtroom, or probably at tea with the queen. She was a chameleon.

It struck Lacy that she didn’t really know what color a chameleon was before it started changing.

How could you change a boy’s bedding every week and feed him breakfast and drive him to the orthodontist and not know him at all?

The town of Sterling would analyze to death what she had done to her son—but what about what she would do for him? It was easy to be proud of the kid who got straight A’s and who made the winning basket—a kid the world already adored. But true character showed when you could find something to love in a child everyone else hated.

Children didn’t make their own mistakes. They plunged into the pits they’d been led to by their parents. She and Lewis had truly believed they were headed the right way, but maybe they should have stopped to ask for directions.

Dorian Gray had a portrait that grew old and evil while he remained young and innocent-looking. Maybe the quiet, reserved mother who would testify for her son had a portrait somewhere that was ravaged with guilt, twisted with pain. Maybe the woman in that picture was allowed to cry and scream, to break down, to grab her son’s shoulders and say What have you done?

“Was there ever anything in Peter’s personality that led you to believe he was capable of an act like this?”
“When you look into your baby’s eyes,” Lacy said softly, “you see everything you hope they can be… not everything you wish they won’t become.”