Blue Sisters

Lucky’s decision to come to London and visit Avery seems at first like a positive attempt to facilitate connection. However, the two sisters have a particularly tense and antagonistic relationship: Because Lucky is the youngest and Avery is the eldest, Avery’s tendency to be domineering becomes even more exaggerated. Lucky idolizes Avery and believes that her sister has a perfect life; this leaves her feeling resentful and insecure. Upon learning that Avery and Chiti are trying to conceive, Lucky thinks resentfully that “she didn’t need a mom anymore, and she especially didn’t need her sister to be her mom” (84). Meanwhile, Avery is terrified that some misfortune will befall Lucky but can only express her fear through frustration and judgment. Avery harshly asks Lucky, “[D]id Nicky not teach you anything?” (118) while Lucky retorts that “you’re not better than anybody” (118). The two sisters—each consumed with the need to appear in control—can’t be honest with each other, and their mutual fear of vulnerability leads to conflict rather than connection.

Ironically, Lucky and Avery are more alike than different. Each tries to stifle her grief through self-destructive behavior. Lucky feels alone and lost; she can’t feel at ease within the domestic world of her sister’s home, but she also doesn’t connect with anyone while out partying. When Lucky hears, or imagines that she hears, a security guard at the nightclub murmuring “you’re Nicky’s baby” (98), she reveals her psychological desire and longing to be nurtured. As the youngest of the sisters, and especially because of her mother’s aloof attitude, Lucky longs to be cared for, protected, and sheltered. Once her guard is down, she imagines herself being welcomed back into a family dynamic and absolved of the responsibility of adult agency, retreating into a fantasy of infantilization. Nicky is never far from Lucky’s thoughts, and the fact that the mere mention of her name sends Lucky into an emotional tailspin illustrates The Enduring Impact of Grief. 

Mellors only reveals gradually that Avery’s outward façade is a lie; by the time the plot begins, Avery has already met Charlie and experienced an undeniable attraction to him, “fee[ling] something she had not felt in a long time: a frisson of desire” (134). The retroactive narration of Avery’s burgeoning relationship with Charlie reveals that Avery is often not honest or truly present. She conceals her desire from both her sister and her wife, and she effectively tries to deny what happens. Avery and Charlie ironically meet at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but the sexual encounter with him reflects her addictive and self-destructive tendencies. While they are having sex, Avery compares her pleasure to “plunging down the piston of a syringe” and later tells Charlie that “I find what gives me pleasure and I do it until it gives me pain” (147). This statement describes Avery’s past substance use as well as her relationship with Charlie. It encapsulates the challenge of Overcoming Addiction, and as such it could apply equally to all the Blue sisters. 

The pleasure of having sex with Charlie allows Avery to temporarily escape from her fears for her sister, her doubts about her marriage, and her grief and pain. The sexual encounter is also high-risk since Avery and Charlie do not use condoms, which later necessitates Avery taking emergency contraception (this is what leads to her adultery being uncovered). While Avery and Charlie do seem to share a genuine connection, and she feels a sincere desire for him, the encounter reveals that Avery’s attempts at perfectionism have led her to repress her true desires and seek outlets that carry the risk of significant consequences. This episode reveals that for Avery, addictive dynamics extend beyond the use of substances into every aspect of her life.

This section of the novel provides greater elaboration on Nicky’s death, including the retrospective description of the scene where Bonnie finds her sister’s body and carries it into the lobby of the apartment building, desperately seeking help. Bonnie recalls how “she picked up Nicky and staggered with her to the elevator” (112); despite her athleticism and physical strength, Bonnie couldn’t intervene to help Nicky when it was most needed. This scene hints at why the death was so traumatic for all the sisters: It was completely unanticipated and left them all feeling helpless. Avery felt helpless because she couldn’t control and manage the situation, and Bonnie felt helpless because she couldn’t use her physical strength to change the outcome. This feeling of helplessness leads to lasting trauma for all three surviving sisters, illustrating The Enduring Impact of Grief. In different ways, all three engage in harmful behaviors to avoid feeling helpless or accepting that events are sometimes beyond their control. 

Nicky’s death occurs chronologically before the start of the plot and is a major inciting event for the subsequent conflict; describing the event retrospectively reveals that it remains present and unresolved for all the sisters. In addition to the depiction of her death, these chapters provide more context into Nicky’s struggles and suffering before she died. She faced stigma while trying to access painkillers, which reflects one way in which addiction and substance misuse can occur. Nicky was also frustrated because her only treatment option, the surgical removal of her uterus, would have prevented her from becoming pregnant. While the three other sisters had high-achieving careers in their different fields, Nicky was content with a more mundane life, but she refused to give up on her primary dream of becoming a mother. Nikki’s desire to preserve her fertility forces her to endure ongoing pain that ultimately claims her life—a tragedy that highlights the lack of effective treatment options for endometriosis, a common medical condition that exclusively affects women and people with uteruses. 

Bonnie is the first of the sisters to return to New York. Like all the sisters, she returns only because crisis disrupts her life. Facing The Enduring Impact of Grief, the sisters are uncomfortable being in the city that contains their memories of Nicky. Bonnie only goes back because she is worried about potentially being held legally liable after the conflict with the man at the club. However, once she returns, Bonnie begins to feel a sense of renewal and revitalization: She even decides to return to her boxing training. As will be the case with her sisters, Bonnie is able to embark on newfound healing and progress once she returns to New York and symbolically confronts the past. Returning to the place where she grew up allows her to embark on a process of Self-Discovery Through Sisterhood. When Bonnie steps back into the boxing gym, with Pavel waiting inside, she imagines “her sister’s warm palm in hers” (115), revealing that she can only make progress because she has begun to reckon with her grief rather than running away from it.