Mercy

“When he gave it to her that day, she’d held it up to the light, turning it back and forth, until his hands had come over hers, stilling. ‘Be careful,’ he had said. ‘It’s fragile. See the soft lead? It bends. It can break.’ She wondered why she had not perceived that conversation then the same way she did now: as a shrill and distant warning.”

The stained-glass panel makes an appearance in the Prologue; later in the story, when it is revealed that Cam bought it for Allie, it becomes clear that it symbolizes the couple’s fractured relationship. The stained-glass panel is an important symbol in the book, representing the entanglement between Cam and Mia; here, Allie’s reflection suggests that it foreshadows the affair and the damage to her marriage with Cam.

“Allie had trouble convincing herself that the reason they had gotten married years later did not have to do with the fact that after college, they were two of the few who had come back to Wheelock. Cam had returned because it was expected of him, Allie because there was nowhere else she really wanted to be.”

From the outset, it is clear that Allie is the one who is more invested in her marriage. She has a sense that she does not entirely deserve Cam; she believes their relationship is born more out of mere circumstance rather than her inherent desirability to Cam. This dynamic changes later in the book, after she discovers his affair with Mia. Allie’s reflection here also demonstrates how she and Cam have always wanted and been motivated by different things in life.

“He certainly wasn’t about to let a murderer off the hook because the man was his cousin. And bending the laws would be unethical. If there was any principle Cameron MacDonald lived by, it was doing things the way they were supposed to be done. After all, as both police chief and clan chief, it had been the pattern of his entire life.”

Cam reflects on how he cannot let Jamie off the hook just because Jamie is his cousin, as that would be breaking the law. Cam lives his life guided by the way things ought to be, dictated by norms and traditions, as he suggests here. Jamie, in some sense, represents a conflict of interest: As police chief, he ought to arrest Jamie; as clan chief, he ought to show Jamie mercy.