Mimi's Place

Mimi's Place comes to be not merely a restaurant, but a symbol the girls' new life after the death of their grandmother. "'Mimi's Place has saved my sanity this past year,'" Mandy tells her sisters on her divorce day; it gave her life shape and meaning at a time when she needed those things most (269). For Emma and Mandy, both of whom are navigating painful divorces, Mimi's Place symbolizes a fresh start, a new leaf, a new chapter after previous pages have told only of pain and heartache. The work the girls do for the restaurant gives them new purpose in life. It is both a mercy and a blessing for all three of them to have to work at the place their grandmother loved so much.

Izzy

Izzy, the cat that Emma adopts from the shelter, symbolizes Emma's capacity for love, foreshadowing the...