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Chapter 61
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Remarkably Bright Creatures, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Grief and Memory
Loneliness and Companionship
Family
Closure and Healing
Summary
Analysis
Though she’s decided not to move to Charter Village, Tova’s house has still been sold, and she doesn’t have a plan. She sits on her usual bench at the pier near the aquarium, looking out at the sea and thinking about Erik. She’s more certain than ever: he wouldn’t have taken his own life. Not if he knew he was going to be a father. He would’ve stayed, and he would’ve been a great dad. Just then, a woman approaches her: Avery. She’s been trying to get in touch with Cameron with no luck, so she came by the aquarium to see if he was here. Tova explains that he’s gone back to California, overwhelmed, she supposes, by too many “misunderstandings.”
Tova now finds herself without a clear path forward, but rather than obsess or try to control the situation, she accepts it for what it is, knowing she’ll figure it all out in the end. Avery’s coincidental arrival, meanwhile, moves the narrative forward, tying together the characters’ separate storylines and reinforcing how misunderstandings have shaped Cameron’s recent choices.
Active
Themes
Avery, upset that Cameron bailed on their date without saying anything, realizes that Marco omitted the fact that Cameron had come by the store to let Avery know he couldn’t make it. As the women sit together looking at the sea, Avery mentions that she once saved a woman from jumping in. She’d seemed unwell, muttering about an “accident” and a “boom.” The pieces click for Tova: Erik, caught in high winds, was perhaps struck by the boom on his sailboat. It could’ve been a freak accident, not something intentional. And maybe the woman was Daphne. Avery wonders aloud whether she made a difference that day, and Tova assures her she did.
