Vivian’s singular characteristic is her self-containment; she carefully chooses what she shares with others at all times. For example, the defining moment of her life comes when, overwhelmed by grief after the death of her husband, Dutchy, she gives her new-born daughter away. That single decision defines her life from that point on, much as being an orphan had before that. However, she never tells her second husband that she had a child. She forces herself to live without confiding her hurt and pain to anyone for nearly 70 years. She believes that she must live with the consequences of her decision: she never has another child, and never tries to contact the child she gave up. As a result, when Molly enters her life, Vivian is living in a type of self-imposed emotional isolation.

Despite the repeated traumas of her childhood, which makes the reader sympathetic to her character, Vivian is not an easy character to relate to or like. She is not a traditional “heroine;” no reader would want to emulate her life. For most of her life after she loses her husband, she resists growing or developing. She cannot handle any more pain, so she finds a safe relationship with an undemanding man that allows her to experience a form of happiness, but her life is muted and small compared to the intensity of her feelings for those she has lost.