Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses rape, sexual assault, and alcohol and drug abuse.

Jess arrives at Island Home as the brand new head of housekeeping, taking over for her predecessor (whom Ned let go for taking a day off—to attend her sister’s funeral—during a launch week). She’s effective and efficient, fulfilled by the “problem-solving” aspects of her job. After all, she has maneuvered herself into this position for the express purpose of taking revenge on the Cranes, whom she blames for the drunken hit-and-run that killed her father and put her mother in a coma.

Jess’s characterization revolves around this fundamental event. She was geographically trapped by it, stuck in the same town as her mother’s unconscious body. Released to travel after her mother’s death, the trauma still haunts her. She has a nightmare on the first night, the dream “that always begins the same way” (52). This emphasizes the idea that, while she is no longer geographically trapped, she is still trapped with a memory that “always” surfaces in a dream. Her fantasy of revenge occupies her during the day as she dwells on “the practicalities, telling herself it [is] just a sort of weird mental exercise she [is] doing, a way of dealing with her hurt, her anger, her trauma” (142).