Letter to Ann

Dear Ann,

I wanted to write to you to ask how you felt about your mother. It seemed like your feelings towards her changed throughout the novel. You used to really look up to her, do you think that was a product of age or just genuinely loving her? For instance when you got into the car accident in Arizona you let her place the blame for the accident squarely on you despite the fact that all you had really asked for was to go on to the inn where you could use the credit card, Comfort Inn was the place I think. When you were younger it seemed like you realized things were strange with her but didn't really ever think about mentioning anything to her about it. For instance at the very beginning she just left you by the side of the road, and apparently she'd done this a few times before, and she returned and you didn't really say anything about it at all. Did it just seem pointless to say anything to your mom or did you just think that things were normal with how she acted despite the fact that it was unlike anything else you'd ever seen or really heard of. 

I guess I also wanted to ask about how you treated Peter Keller. It seemed like he was really nothing except nice to you and you just treated him wretchedly and manipulated him quite a lot. It seemed like something that your mother would do, well not necessarily that she would be able to, but something that she would do if she was able to get in close enough to one of the men which she thought were interested in her. Did she influence you with your treatment at all? Did she know about you and Peter or was it really just something more that you had picked up through osmosis as a set of expectations and then you just enacted them after that. 

What did you think of how your mother handled her search for men? It seemed very strange to me. She just became so dependent on the men even when they had nothing at all that they could offer her. For instance the man she had living with you at the beginning in Los Angeles. I can't remember his name but I do recall that he was a developer and that your mother thought that he might be involved with the mob. Anyways he did really nothing and your mother put up with him despite that fact. I thought the strangest thing was how she only got rid of him after he yelled at you. She had no problem herself with yelling you, and if I recall correctly even hit you sometimes. Why do you think it was such a big deal to her that the man yelled at you? Because it seemed to me that pretty much anything else that he did wasn't really a problem at all.