Firefly Lane

It is 1970, and Tully Hart sits in her grandparents’ house quietly playing while the country is in upheaval. Gran sits in her rocking chair, cross-stitching quietly. Her grandfather lies silently in his bed as he recovers from a stroke.

A knock at the door shatters this peaceful scene. The visitor is Tully’s mother, Dorothy, whom Tully has not seen since she was four, six years earlier. Dorothy argues with Gran about taking Tully. Dorothy is visibly drunk and, as Gran points out, broke and not ready for the responsibility of her child. When Dorothy tells Tully that they’re leaving, Tully realizes that her mother has not shown her any affection or asked her to get her things ready. Tully feels afraid and seeks solace in her grandmother, the woman who has made her feel loved and safe all these years. As Gran says goodbye to her, she begins to cry, and Tully says she’s sorry. Her mother grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her, telling her to never apologize because it makes her pathetic.

Dorothy pulls Tully toward a beat-up VW bus filled with marijuana smoke and three of Dorothy’s friends. Inside the vehicle, Dorothy does not sit with her daughter; instead, she smokes and talks with her friends, criticizing Tully’s dress and ignoring the macaroni necklace that Tully gives to her. Tully feels shame about herself and a deep desire for her mother’s approval. When she sees that her mother is not interested, she feels as though it is her fault for not being good enough. After drifting off to sleep, Tully awakens to a busy Seattle street. Her mother grabs her hand and leads her into an anti-war protest.

After marching all day, Dorothy continues walking with a tired and hungry Tully. The protest has ended, and the drinking has begun. Tully loses her grip on Dorothy’s hand and is lost in the crowd. After screaming for her mother, Tully sits on the curb, hoping that Dorothy will return for her. She doesn’t. Tully awakens the next morning to an empty street and a policeman on horseback, who takes her back to Gran’s house.  

Gran hugs Tully and tells her that none of this is her fault, but Tully doesn’t believe her. On her 11th birthday, Gran gives Tully a scrapbook. Tully decides that the scrapbook is the perfect vehicle to show her mother all the parts of her life that she missed. For years, she collects artifacts from her life and catalogs them in scrapbooks, embellishing and exaggerating some of the events and accomplishments. When Tully turns 14, she decides she is done with scrapbooks and she doesn’t care about her mother, either. She tries not to think about her mother, even telling people that she’s dead.

Kate Mularkey wakes up dreading school. It’s 1974, and eighth grade has been “totally sucky.” Her two best friends started running with a wilder crowd, and when she didn’t join them, she was cut loose into “a social desert” (15). During a chaotic breakfast, Kate notices a moving van. When her mother comments that perhaps Kate will make a friend, Kate gets annoyed with her ever-nosy mother. At the bus stop later that morning, Kate sees the gorgeous new neighbor, but she disappears and never gets on the bus.

Tully spends all morning choosing an outfit for school, but nothing is right. At the bus stop, she decides that she isn’t going to this “hick” school. When she stomps angrily into the house and announces her decision, her mother says okay. Tully points out that she’s only 14 and doesn’t have any friends, then leaves the room, disgusted by her mother’s lack of caring and “drug-soaked advice” (20).

Kate watches Tully from a distance. Tully is instantly popular, and the other kids talk about her with awe. This makes Kate feel even more alone and desperate for Tully to notice her. One evening, Kate’s mother sends her to Tully’s house to deliver a casserole. Kate’s mother encourages her to take risks and try to make a new friend. Tully’s mother, who is high, answers the door, but Tully sweeps in quickly and takes Kate into their kitchen. Tully then tells Kate that her mother has cancer. As Kate leaves, Tully giggles about Kate’s last name, and Kate reacts negatively because she’s tired of being made fun of for it. Tully snaps at her, and Kate leaves.

Tully regrets snapping at Kate and feels embarrassed about her mother. She wakes Dorothy, who prefers to be called Cloud, to eat the dinner that Kate brought but leaves the room when Cloud shows no interest in hearing about Tully’s life.

That night, Kate can’t sleep, so she sneaks out to sit with her horse. While she’s outside, she sees the light on at the Hart house. She imagines that Tully is in there with other cool kids doing cool things, and she longs to one day be invited.

A few days later, Tully leaves for a date with the high school quarterback, Pat Richmond. On her way out the door, her mother tells Tully not to wake her up when she gets home. Tully looks at Kate’s house, warm and filled with family, and wonders what it would be like to show up there someday.

At the party, Pat notices that Tully isn’t drinking her beer, so she drinks it quickly, hoping to show him that she’s cool and to get him to like her. After drinking several beers and fantasizing about the love that she and Pat might share, Pat leads Tully into a secluded spot and rapes her. Tully is upset, and Pat blames her for leading him on. Tully lies in the grass until the party has broken up. She stands, vomits, and starts the walk home. On the way, she decides that the rape will be a secret that she will tuck away just as she’s done with her weird mother and unknown father; after all, people would say that being raped was her fault anyway.

When Tully arrives home, she can’t bring herself to enter her house—where she knows she’ll feel even more alone—so she wanders over to the horse on Kate’s property. Kate is out there, too, and she notices that Tully doesn’t look good and smells terrible. When she asks if Tully is okay, Tully starts to cry, and Kate hugs her. During their conversation, Tully reveals that she was raped, and Kate continues to comfort her. As the two girls part ways, Tully wants to hug Kate, but she is afraid to appear vulnerable. When Tully gets home, she showers and thinks about her night. Immediately she boxes up the experience, shelving it “alongside the memories of the times Cloud had abandoned her and immediately [...] working on forgetting it was there” (37).