Ask Again, Yes

“No, she wondered if a presence was the thing her new neighbor had, if it was something a person had to be born with and could never be learned.”

As she first assesses her new neighbor, Anne, Lena senses something about this beautiful woman. She feels a suspicion, a sense of caution that she cannot quite name. 

“‘Why is my mother like what?’ Peter answered after a moment […] But he didn’t know, really.”

Peter grows up with a mother who behaves oddly. As a teenager opening up to his new friend, Kate, he is in denial. Rather than acknowledge Anne’s behavior, like everyone else around her, he pretends not to notice. 

“It was a tragedy, clearly, from [Anne’s] view, that she’d left one life and ended up in another.”

The novel traces how each character comes ultimately to accept the way their life has turned out. Early on, Anne festers within a life she perceives as driven by bad luck and cruel irony.

“He felt lonely all of a sudden. Everything in their house was lonely.” 

Peter grows up apart from everyone but Kate in a home where his mother seldom leaves her room, and his father spends most of his time in the basement drinking.

“‘You think you’re so smart.’” 

Anne taunts Kate the night the two lovebirds are busted for sneaking out. It is a curious assessment of Kate’s character—it’s unusual to object to Kate being smart—and a measure of Anne’s paranoia that she believes her son is hopelessly mismatched with Kate. 

“‘It’s called adolescence,’ Lena had said. ‘It’s called life.’”

Kate’s mother, Lena, is the only parent who understands that the relationship between Kate and Peter is important for both kids. She offers, to a fretful Francis, this knowing assessment of the value of friendship during the teenage years.

“‘We’re not supposed to talk about it? I don’t see why.’”

Just months after the shooting, Kate is unclear why her family refuses to talk about the event. This impenetrable and toxic silence will last for nearly 20 years.

“She missed even the expectation of seeing [Peter]. She missed looking for him and the thrill she’d feel through her whole body when she’d spot him stepping out onto his porch.” 

At the heart of the novel is the complex relationship between Kate and Peter. Keane describes their feelings for each other as separate from both infatuation-driven adolescent crushes and simple adolescent lust. 

“‘He was my best friend.’”

Against the suspicions of a scheming high school Lothario who pries into Kate’s emotions to get her to admit she is in love with the boy whose mother shot her father, Kate refuses to simplify her feelings for Peter.

“In the beginning, when he was a freshman and even a sophomore, [Peter] thought of Kate whenever he could. He’d close his eyes and send her messages through his mind.”

Distance cannot separate Kate and Peter. Their families cannot keep them apart. This connection will empower Kate and Peter to do what neither of their parents do: stay committed to their relationship through both joys and sorrow.

“‘Now use the brain God gave you.’” 

The unsung hero of the novel is Brian’s brother, George. After Brian dumps a troubled Peter on his brother before skipping out, George emerges as a generous protector for his nephew. He believes in Peter’s promise; these are his last words of encouragement before Peter heads off to college.

“‘I mean, a little, sure, a few beers here and there, but you’ve probably got the gene, Peter. Some people have it and some people don’t.’”

George is not naïve. He loves his nephew but, unlike virtually every other character, he cannot simply ignore reality. This advice he gives to Peter as he heads off to college will come to haunt Peter later as he careens into alcoholism.

“He should have at least stood in her front lawn and shouted her name.”

In a moment of drunken vulnerability, Peter writes a letter to Kate. Even as he fumbles with the mailbox, he understands what he should have done. This confessional moment is when we realize the depth of his love. 

It was as if a wall had been built between her real life and her life in the hospital and that wall just kept growing taller and taller. And then Dr. Abbasi arrived with a catapult to help her over.” 

For nearly 20 years, Anne is misdiagnosed and subjected to a regimen of antipsychotic drugs, which only separate her from the significant emotional traumas that she needs to confront. The counseling protocol of Dr. Abbasi underscores the novel’s advocacy for authentic healing through communication. 

“‘I regret having a child,’ [Anne] said to [Peter] once, for no reason at all as he was doing his homework. ‘Greatest regret of my life.’”

Anne comes to understand the only thing that matters to her is her son. During her recovery treatment with Dr. Abassi, however, she confesses this horrible moment when Peter was only 10 and admits this was the darkest moment in her life.

“She put her hands on either side of his neck, cold despite the mittens, running them in perfect symmetry across his shoulders, down his arms. He shivered and fitted his hands on either side of her waist.”

In contrast to the profound friendship of Kate and Peter, Francis succumbs to his sexual hunger for a divorced neighbor. Francis regrets this moment almost immediately. 

“She wasn’t looking for him to say it back, she was just letting him know that her love was his to keep or to fritter away.” 

In the wake of the devastating revelation about his affair, Francis, unable now to bridge the emotional distance with his wife, recalls this moment years earlier when, walking in the snow in Bay Ridge, Lena first declared her love for him. 

“When he and Kate started seeing other again, they decided that they’d leave all that baggage behind and start fresh.”

This moment, as Kate is introduced to Uncle George, signals how far both Kate and Peter still must go to achieve real psychological wholeness.

“‘I’ve never done a single thing wrong. I’m the one who’s applying. Not my mother. Not my father. Not my uncle. So their histories don’t matter, only mine matters.’”

In the interview for a job as a police officer, Peter, like the identically named disciple who denies Christ three times on Good Friday, completely denies his history and the affect it has on him. It is ironic that Peter, a student of history, understands so little about the implications of his own past.

“‘Love isn’t enough. Not even close.’” 

Francis tells this to Kate after she tells her father of her love of Peter. He argues that relationships cannot be sustained simply by emotion. Love is tested by circumstance and must be sustained with patience, understanding, generosity, commitment, and communication. 

“If she had all the information, then maybe she’d be able to figure this thing out, find the critical moment in time when things could have gone in one direction but instead they went another.” 

Kate, a forensic scientist, believes that even the most reckless and destructive behavior can ultimately be explained. The novel rejects that assumption and challenges its characters to embrace uncertainty with the help of others.

“‘This doesn’t bother you? That this is all life is?’” 

Peter struggles to come to terms with what he sees as the routine of life. He self-medicates with alcohol until he returns from rehab and finds satisfaction in what he once found routine. 

“‘We repeat what we don’t repair.’” 

The advice of Anne’s therapist serves as the thematic focus in the novel’s closing part. The secrets that the characters refuse to acknowledge inevitably create heartache, anger, and pain.