Imagery is used for the purpose of foreshadowing after Hadley had met Oliver on the plane and then lost him in the London airport. As if that weren’t enough, the passage also treats the reader with a physical description of both Hadley and her daughter.

It also underscores the significance of the development of Hadley’s character. Situating a learned love of reading as an inherited genetic trait is very effective at communicating just how much this reading ritual meant to both participants. They were as deep and meaningful as any other trait Dad had passed along to her: her blue eyes, her straw-colored hair, the sprinkling of freckles across her nose…He was a professor, a lover of stories, and he was building her a library in the same way other men might build their daughter's houses.” This imagery is revealing of the tightness of that bond as well as the danger of its fragility.

“The stories had become a part of her by then they stuck to her bones like a good meal, bloomed inside of her like a garden. The bond that this ritualistic ceremony threatens to break is poignantly posed through the imagery of recollection of a long-past father/daughter ritual.

Especially when the father remarries and the daughter feels coerced into flying across the Atlantic to attend the wedding. The story is also about the strain that divorce puts on some father/daughter relationships. “Imagine if she hadn’t forgotten the book…Or before that, even: Imagine if she hadn’t waited to try on her dress…Or later: if she hadn’t given herself a paper cut while printing out her ticket…If the wheel of her suitcase hadn’t been off-kilter…If she’d run just a bit faster to the gate.” This is a story that pursues the idea that many of the most significant turning points in our lives-or at least those we perceive at the time to be significant turning points-often hinge on the smallest and seemingly most insignificant of actions, such as those listed above. Before revealing those consequences, however, is a litany of imagery of all the things that happened to make her late as she considers how if only any single or two of them had happened, her entire trip would have turned out so completely different. The story opens with the protagonist, Hadley, arriving just four minutes later for her flight. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

The probability of love at first sight