Lola in the Mirror

The sketch is exactly as the title depicts, with the city as a backdrop. The museum label notes that the city is no longer as menacing as in previous drawings. It also hypothesizes that the pterodactyl symbolizes the artist’s acceptance of the past.

Lola wakes up to a beeping heart monitor in a hospital room. Sitting next to the bed, Detective Sergeant Cameron Millar tells her that she has been unconscious for five days. They acknowledge their losses: Charlie and Topping. Many people thought she would not survive, but Millar knew she would because of her art exhibit in New York. Before leaving, he agrees to set up another meeting with Phoebe. When the detective leaves, Danny arrives.

Lola’s drawing shows a young girl in front of a blank canvas. The frame contains images from the artist’s earlier drawings, like monster hands, bear heads, and skulls. The museum label calls this a tribute to the viewer.

Lola imagines a little girl in a yellow peacoat viewing her exhibit in New York. Learning about the flood, the chase, and the rescue, the girl wonders where everyone lives now. June and Sully are four hours north, while Ros sleeps rough in Musgrave Park. Soon after Lola leaves the hospital, another flood hits. The Well is damaged, but Evelyn receives government support to renovate and the news that the drop-in center will survive the Olympics.

In her van, Lola wakes to sunlight and contemplates names. She takes Danny’s hand. When he wakes, she tells him about another Picasso dream she had where he was painting on the stones of a public square, but angry people walked across the painting. Then, Lola and Danny emerge from the van, which is parked on Danny’s lawn. He gifts her a bike, and she kisses him before noting, in Buckle’s voice, that she will always be home with Danny.

At Ursula Lang’s house, Lola puts on a red dress, and the woman does her hair in preparation to meet Phoebe. Later, Lola exits the train where she once shouted her invisibility. Today, people’s eyes are on her, and she stops to admire her reflection, noting that “they”—the reflection and her—have endured so much. Then, Lola enters the coffee shop and hugs her sister.

Buckle’s narration begins as Phoebe explains Lola’s past: Her mother, Anna Gould, was kind and worked selling women’s shoes. She was diagnosed with cancer when Phoebe was a teenager. Lola’s father, John Gould, married their mother in 1999, but they divorced in 2012 due to losing Lola. Back in Lola’s narration, Phoebe reveals that their father blames himself for her disappearance. In 2005, the family was at a water park. Lola was sleeping while their mother took Phoebe to the bathroom. Their dad saw someone he knew and got up to talk. When he turned around, baby Lola was gone. For months, all news in Perth centered around her.

When Lola asks about her name, she confesses that she can never be whoever that person is because it will prevent her from becoming who she longs to be; if Lola takes her original name, she will be tethered to her past. Phoebe vows to call Lola whatever she wants if they can just be sisters. Lola’s real name is Iris, which means rainbow. Then, Lola whispers the name she chooses.

The final sketch is the same as the first—The Tyrannosaurus Waltz—except that the girl is older, with a sketchbook in hand, and there is no monster. The museum label dubs this as the final piece from the “Girls on the Lam Period” (478). When a journalist asks what happened to the monster, the artist notes that she killed it with her pen.

Lola defines herself as a girl sitting in a professor’s office at the Queensland College of Art. The woman, Rose Tanaka, is looking through Lola’s portfolio while she connects her past to the drawings. Then, talking of the future, Lola tells Tanaka about the exhibit in New York and how Tanaka will be part of her story because she helped change the course of the artist’s life. Tanaka turns to a stunning portrait of a woman titled Erica Finlay. Lola says it is her mom. Noting the unique name signed at the bottom, Tanaka asks if it is her real name. Lola says yes. When the question of tuition comes up, Lola offers cash from her backpack.

Later, Lola watches Christina da Silva at a playground while her mother sits nearby. When Lola approaches the woman, Bless invites her to sit. Lola tells her everything about Erica and admits that the only way she can make sense of anything is through Christina. Bless promises to keep the child happy; unexpectedly, she confesses that she, too, lived with a monster who pushed the pram into the river. She believes that Erica saved both Christina and Bless that day. Suddenly, Christina runs over and asks who Lola is. Internally, Lola names everything that composes her, and then she introduces herself as Lola Inthemirror.