A Spool of Blue Thread

Ghosts in one’s past can also symbolize skeletons in one’s closet, or the sins of the past, and the Whitshanks inhabit all these sayings. The last few chapters underscore the sins of the Whitshank family’s past by revealing that Junior and Linnie Mae’s relationship began as statutory rape, and she then entrapped him into building a life together. Their family legacy began with a crime, which Mrs. Whitshank concedes to Abby: “I don’t know why I’m telling you, though. It’s supposed to be a secret. I’ve never even told my own children!” (323). This news is the catalyst that dismantles Abby’s perfect ideal of the Whitshanks. Though Linnie Mae and Junior eventually marry, it’s also revealed in Chapter 13 that he never loves Linnie Mae, but resigns himself to her control, and even misses having a delegated place in the social scheme when he falls from her good graces. Despite wanting freedom, he kept his regrets a secret: “It echoed the pattern of their lives together—all the secrets he had kept from her despite his temptation to tell” (423). These skeletons in the closet, as it were, operate as the building blocks of the Whitshank family. The women forcibly bind the family together, and they all create a picture of perfection hiding flaws roiling beneath the surface.

Ghosts also play out as a theme when Denny finds the spool of blue thread in Abby’s closet. After Abby dies, Denny searches for blue thread and the exact color he needs falls into his hand, making him wonder if Abby is reaching out from beyond the grave. If so, he believes she’s atoning for past wrongs, or she’s recognizing his desire to atone for his past wrongs towards her. Denny’s entire arc suggests that he’s trying to find out what being “at home” means: what binds him to others and creates his identity. He’s must enjoy reaffirming his identity as the black sheep of the family, because he keeps resurfacing rather than exiting the family entirely. While Denny is bound to the family in this way, he has also resented his place in the family social scheme even before Stem was inserted into the family as a stand-in for who Denny could have become. Of all the Whitshanks, he’s the one who needs to unravel his complicated feelings about the family bonds most, and the blue thread allows him to do so. Denny still travels to his significant other, Alison, at the end of the narrative, and so is still both bound and ancillary to the family. Despite being separated, Denny seeks to right past wrongs, suggesting that, like the other characters, he’s still haunted by the unresolved issues—ghosts of his past.

A distinction between the rich and the poor, or the haves and have nots, runs throughout the narrative in A Spool of Blue Thread. Junior Whitshank builds the house on Bouton Road for the Brills, a family that has money. Though Junior willingly does their bidding, “The Brills took him for granted. They addressed him by his first name while they remained ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’” (58). Junior’s actions stem from an early desire to join the “haves,” and his legacy is symbolic of this. “Oh, Junior was forever thinking up ways to look like quality” (58), which is why he names his children Merrick and Redcliffe (Red)—they sound illustrious and cultured, as James Merrick was an 18th century English poet and the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe was famous in old England. Junior’s obsession with being esteemed by his well-off neighbors, even when he can boast about having the nicest house on the block, is indicative of being unhappy with his origins. This unhappiness causes resentment towards his wife, a resentment mixed with resignation about Linnie Mae having essentially tricked him into marriage. He also begins hating the rich because they refuse to accept him as one of their own. For the rest of his life, he tinkers with the house, indicating a restless spirit and an acknowledgement that he has never fully accepted his place in the social hierarchy. His restless spirit is ultimately the same spirit that forces individuals to aimlessly emulate others, embodying the grass is always greener attitude, and suggesting that no matter how rich one is, one will never be happy if poverty is a poverty of the spirit.

Junior’s wife, Linnie Mae, turns a blind eye to the plight of the “have nots” when she upbraids Abby for working with poor black people, even though Linnie Mae herself comes from humble beginnings. One of the first things that shocks her in Baltimore as a young girl is seeing so many black people. When she has the conversation about this with Abby, however, she’s an older woman, and shows that she has not yet let go of her racist and classist assumptions. When she queries Abby about working with “colored kids,” she says, “It’s a poor neighborhood, isn’t it? The people there are poor as dirt, and they’d as lief rob you as look at you. I swear, Abby, sometimes you don’t show good sense when it comes to knowing who to be scared of” (308). Linnie Mae’s own lack of privilege in her background has almost made her less empathetic to others who come from a similar or even less advantaged background. She fails to acknowledge that her whiteness has afforded her more opportunities than the families of color in Baltimore to create a place of esteem in the community. Abby takes the high road, not by directly acknowledging Linnie Mae’s racism, but by suggesting that the families she works with aren’t scary but sad. Abby’s openness for others reveals that her heart is in a better place, and essentially “has more,” than those in the narrative who are a part of the economic “haves.” This suggests that, like Junior, Mrs. Whitshank believes in a convoluted idea of safety and security that effectively shields her from those she sees as the “have nots.” geographically and mentally.