Over the course of the novel, many characters close to Alison grapple with her death, and the various impacts of this loss evolve over many years. For Claire, grief evolves unpredictably, and her grieving process only becomes clear in retrospect.

From the time Alison’s body is found, through the next few months, Claire’s understanding of the loss comes in waves. At the resort, she cannot comprehend the loss:

Mere days ago, my sister had rubbed aloe on my sunburned skin. If I concentrated on the memory, I could still feel her fingertips. Now I was shedding that skin. Soon there would be nothing left of me that she had touched (45).

In this moment, Claire’s shedding skin represents loss that can’t ever be regained, reflecting her nascent understanding that Alison is gone for good—an understanding that expands when she goes on a trip to Paris with her aunt Caroline. While there, she realizes that Alison “was not gone just from me and my parents […], but also and above all from herself” (51). Here, a new layer of tragedy reveals itself to Claire, and this leads her to fixate on the ways in which her life would be different had Alison not died.