Someone is making a movie about Lydia, and they need the rights. Our rights. To the song, and to us.
-- Elizabeth (Four)

Importance: Early in the novel, Elizabeth reveals to Zoe she has been contacted by someone wanting to buy the rights to their old band’s old song “Mistress of Myself,” which made Lydia famous. A movie is being planned about her life. With their children growing into adults, it is only natural that Elizabeth, Zoe, and Andrew should remember the past. With the idea of buying out the rights, remembering the past becomes inescapable.

Elizabeth understood it completely: the desire to be in control, the need to speak the words aloud. No one in St. Paul, Minnesota, had ever truly been her own mistress.
-- Narrator (Six)

Importance: Here, the narrator explains the inspiration for the lyrics Elizabeth wrote to the song that would become “Mistress of Myself.” It stems both from Elizabeth’s reading...