just described herself as her mother’s Difficult Daughter.

Cynthia’s role as the catalyst for the events is emphasized when Francie reaches the hospital. She has begun to reify the memory of that singularly important day. The changing course of the day begins, in her reflection, when she saw Cynthia coming up the hill. This event is quickly connected with Francie’s new status: she is lost, both in the hospital corridors and in regard to her future life. In this regard, Cynthia stands for uncertainty.

The reification of memory is confirmed with another recollection of Cynthia’s coming up the hill, which occurs as Francie waits for her father at his apartment. Closing her eyes, she sees her again as she also remembers feeling that her new situation was “much worse” than Jessica could imagine. The visual image of Cynthia is now firmly connected with tragedy.

Francie thinks of Cynthia several times during the course of the story as she tries to make sense of her changing reality. Cynthia, in Francie's mind, is strongly associated with the moment her life was upended. Before Cynthia, Francie lived in what seemed a stable reality. Afterwards, Francie has to deal with increasing levels of disorientation. Cynthia, described always in conjunction with color red, becomes Francie's fixed point of reference, the "fact" associated with her new reality.

Francie first notices Cynthia as an unrecognized "red dot" coming up the hill to the dorm where Francie and her roommate Jessica live. As she watches through the window, Francie can soon discern that the red dot is Cynthia in her red jacket coming closer. Cynthia, not much older than Francie, is the school secretary, and to Francie, it seems like "some little oddness" to see her outside of her office. Then Cynthia comes into the dorm room in her "red jacket" and tells Francie that Mrs. Peck, the head of school, wants to see her. This throws Francie into a turmoil. She fears she will be expelled from school. However, she has to deal with the more shocking news that her mother has died. This is followed by the disorienting revelation that her father, who she thought was dead, is alive.

On the bus to New York City to bring her mother's ashes to her father, Francie meets Iris Ackerman, a woman who believes in strange conspiracy theories. Iris tells her that "a blimp or a building are evidence" of something being true. The word evidence triggers Francie to once again think of Cynthia's "red jacket" against the snow. This indicates that Francie has associated Cynthia's appearance with hearing of her mother's death. Cynthia is the red dot, the fixed point, the evidence that Francie clings to that everything that is happening to her, strange as it seems, is based in reality.

Finally, on the last page, of the story, Francie recalls talking to Jessica after the news of her mother's death about all that is going on and Jessica saying that "anything can just happen." At this point, Francie again thinks of Cynthia walking up the hill. Once again, Cynthia functions as the reality check that what has happened has really happened.

Cynthia and her red jacket become a leitmotif, a recurrent theme that helps Francie accept the reality that her life changed. Her red jacket against a white background brings to mind William Carlos Williams's poem "The Red Wheelbarrow:"

So much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

In other words, there is a flat substance to reality. What is is. Although Cynthia has played only a minor role in Francie's life, she has been significant as the bridge between Francie's old life and her new one.