Firefly Lane

At the start of the novel, a 10-year-old Tully sees her mother for the first time that she can remember. She is desperate for her mother’s love and approval. When her mother abandons her again, Tully believes that it is her fault her mother left. In her early teenage years, Tully fills scrapbooks to show her mother and make her proud. By age 14, anger sets in and Tully gives up on the scrapbooks and her mother.

When, at the end of eighth grade, Tully’s mother moves them into Kate’s neighborhood, Tully must take care of her mother and is embarrassed by her drug and alcohol use. For Tully, popularity is a way to forget about her mother’s addiction and fill the void of acceptance. Soon after moving to Firefly Lane, Tully is raped, and this experience hinders her ability to trust men for some time. When Tully becomes friends with Kate, she is envious of Kate’s stable, loving family, but the Mularkeys also make Tully feel wanted and safe.

In college, Tully is dead set on a career in journalism. During this time, Tully gets involved with Chad Wiley, her professor, and finds real love and a trusting relationship that helps her move on from her rape. However, she can’t bring herself to be vulnerable and succumb to it. After their relationship ends, Tully convinces herself that Chad left because he didn’t love her enough, echoing the abandonment she felt with her mother.

Tully continues to push forward in her career, working long hours, perfecting her screen presence, but once she achieves success, she begins to feel that something is missing in her life. Tully feels envious of the kind of love that Kate and Johnny share, and she starts to long for someone with whom she can share her life and success.

Tully is often oblivious to other people’s feelings. After Kate and Johnny get together, Tully doesn’t believe that Johnny loves Kate, only changing her mind when she sees him after Kate has miscarried. Tully always assumed that Kate was the person he’d settled for when Tully didn’t want him. Later, when Tully begins longing for love and family, she thinks about her shared past with Johnny and acts like a second mother to Marah without considering how Kate might feel. After she ambushes Kate live on air, Tully doesn’t understand Kate’s reaction; in Tully’s mind, she is only trying to help Kate improve her relationship with her daughter. Tully wants so desperately to be loved and accepted that she doesn’t stop to consider the feelings of someone who has always loved and accepted her.

After Tully learns of Kate’s illness, she apologizes for the live show and for her absence from Kate’s life. When Tully was young, her mother told her not to apologize, and that lesson stuck with her. However, in this moment, Tully realizes that an apology is not a dangerous, humiliating thing; it is the truth and part of the healing process. During Tully’s time with the Ryans, she comes to terms with the fact that her job has been the love of her life, and she sees that Kate has provided her with love and acceptance. After Kate dies, Tully finds value in the memories they shared and the knowledge that Kate did not abandon her. 

Johnny Ryan enters the scene as Tully’s boss at her first real job in journalism. Johnny is a young and handsome former war correspondent who fled El Salvador after being captured and has taken a producer job at a local Seattle news station. Impressed by Tully’s ambition, he takes her on as an unpaid intern and is quickly enamored with her passion for the job. When Kate comes to work for him, as a favor to Tully, he views her as the dependable employee. After Tully is injured during a live broadcast, Kate criticizes his admiration for Tully’s bravery, but she also seeks solace in his embrace as they wait to hear whether Tully is okay. Throughout Kate’s time as his employee, Johnny has no idea of her feelings for him, instead pursuing Tully. When Kate tells him how she feels, he tries to resist her, claiming that he doesn’t want to hurt her, but also hinting that she might be the kind of girl that he could fall in love with. Johnny is more like Tully at this point of the novel; he lives and breathes the news and doesn’t have the time or inclination for romance.

As Johnny’s relationship with Kate develops, with their marriage and the birth of their children, Johnny proves himself to be a devoted husband. After Marah is born, Johnny feels drawn to cover the impending war in Iraq; like Tully, the news drives him, and he wants to be part of the story, regardless of the fact that he has a wife and child who will be left behind. Throughout the years, Tully’s pull remains a factor in his behavior: he helps secure her an interview at NBC, goes to work for her at her show, and dances slowly with her at the anniversary party. These actions feed Kate’s insecurity and demonstrate either Johnny’s lack of understanding regarding his wife’s jealousies or a part of him that still wonders if Tully might have been the one for him. However, when Tully ambushes Kate on her live show, Johnny shows that his loyalties lie completely with Kate, quitting immediately and treating Tully icily. When Kate gets sick, Johnny is a tender and thoughtful husband, accepting Tully back into the fold to appease his dying wife. Even when Kate suggests that she would understand if he were to be with Tully after her death, Johnny insists that Tully was a one-night stand and that Kate is his one true love. At this point, even Kate must admit that he speaks the absolute truth. Over the course of the novel, Johnny changes from dashing newsman to loving family man.

Marah, Kate and Johnny’s oldest child, comes into the world with a vengeance. Her first year is filled with sleepless nights and screaming, but her parents love her immensely. As she enters her middle school years, Marah starts to pull away from her mother, embarrassed by Kate’s involvement and angered by her overprotective nature. However, in the midst of all this strife, Marah does let her mother in at times. Marah’s attitude with her mother hinges on her desire to fit in with her peers and her perception that Kate is the reason she does not. As the battles between mother and daughter continue, Marah is drawn to Tully, the beautiful, rich, and famous woman who dotes on her and supports her desire for freedom. Marah uses Tully to get back at her mother, ultimately resulting in her coordination with Tully for the live show ambush on her mother. However, just before Kate goes on air, Marah tries to tell her mother the truth, and at that moment, readers see Marah’s heart. She knows that what is about to happen will likely hurt her mom, but the wheels are already in motion. After the fact, Marah remains a selfish teenager, explaining to her mother that she only went along with the show because she wanted to attend a concert with Tully. When Kate points out that Marah hurt her, Marah can’t see beyond her own hurt.

When Kate gets sick, and Marah enters her high school years, Marah regrets how she treated her mother in the past. She recognizes the cruelty of her words, and she works to repair her relationship with Kate. In this change, readers witness Marah’s maturation and the revelation of her truer, kinder nature.

As the novel begins, Mrs. Mularkey is Kate’s housedress-wearing mother who continually provides Kate with life lessons that she doesn’t want. Kate sees her mother as overprotective and embarrassing. However, as Kate navigates middle school without any friends, Mrs. Mularkey provides sage advice, telling Kate to take risks and make friends. When Kate befriends Tully, Mrs. Mularkey welcomes Tully with open arms. However, when she discovers that Tully has lied to Kate about her mother’s addictions, she holds Tully accountable and requires that she tell Kate the truth. She also gives advice to Tully, telling her that her mother’s actions don’t define her; instead, she can do whatever she wants if she dreams big and trusts in her friends. Mrs. Mularkey’s advice is life-changing for Tully, and it reveals her wisdom and compassion. While Mrs. Mularkey serves as inspiration for Tully, as Kate matures, she feels her mother’s judgment. Kate believes that her mother consistently compares Kate to Tully, to Kate’s disadvantage, and that her mother pushes the dream of a successful career onto Kate because her mother did not have the same opportunities. In these moments, readers see the humanity of Mrs. Mularkey, a woman who tries to do right by her family and others but regrets the opportunities she was never able to pursue.

Once Kate and Tully reach adulthood, Mrs. Mularkey often serves as the voice of reason. When Kate is upset at Tully’s relationship with Chad, Mrs. Mularkey tells her that sometimes the best thing a friend can do is stay quiet and pick up the pieces when things go wrong. In other instances when the friends have disagreements, Mrs. Mularkey encourages them to consider the other’s point of view. Regardless of what happens, Mrs. Mularkey forgives Kate and Tully and accepts them for who they have become.

The first time readers encounter Cloud, she has returned to retrieve her 10-year-old daughter from Gran’s house. Entering the scene, she is hostile toward Gran and visibly intoxicated. Her interactions with Tully are not loving or even friendly; she keeps her distance physically and only speaks to Tully to criticize her for apologizing. When Tully gives her a macaroni necklace, Cloud barely acknowledges the gift, causing Tully to feel rejected and feeding into Tully’s belief that she is not good enough to elicit her mother’s love. When Tully is separated from her on a busy Seattle street, Cloud’s disappearance indicates her lack of concern for her child.

When Cloud takes Tully to Firefly Lane, her addiction is on full display. Cloud neglects her duties as parent, forcing Tully to clean, shop, and pay their bills. When Tully goes to a high school party as an eighth grader, Cloud’s only parental advice is to tell Tully not to wake her up when she gets home. During these years, readers witness Cloud’s addiction consuming her.

Cloud’s addiction colors all of Tully’s subsequent interactions with her mother. At Gran’s funeral, Cloud says that she is incapable of taking care of Tully, prompting Tully to look at the state she is in. When Tully appears with a camera crew, her mother is living in squalor, and after a night in the hotel, Cloud steals Tully’s jewelry and disappears again. However, through it all, Cloud has carried the macaroni necklace that Tully gave her as a child, indicating that some part of Cloud loves Tully.