One for the Murphys

“I haven’t cried since my mother told me that she was going to marry Dennis. That was 384 days ago, but I want to cry now.” 

As Carley arrives on the Murphy family’s porch, she reflects on how she feels and drops bits and pieces of revelatory backstory. Here, in mentioning her stepfather, Dennis, she reveals her disappointment in her mother’s choice to marry him—but doesn’t say why. Also significant is that whatever traumas led Carley from Las Vegas to Connecticut and the hospital—and from her mother’s care to the Murphy home as a child in foster care—didn’t make her cry, yet standing on the porch meeting these strangers almost does. 

“Still though, this Perky Murphy is as fragile as they come. She wouldn’t last a second in my world.”

Carley feels increasing derision toward Mrs. Murphy at lunch on the day after she arrives. Although Carley has witnessed Mrs. Murphy’s tenderness and parenting for less than a day, she thinks that compared to her own mother, “Perky Murphy” is both weak and laughable. Carley’s attitude suggests a complex backstory. Shortly after she has the above thought, she chooses to stick with a can of processed soup like she’s used to—instead of the sandwich she’d like to try—which suggests stubbornness and pride. 

“I’m not happy that she’s here.” 

Daniel interrupts his mother’s blessing over the food the first night Carley joins Mrs. Murphy and the boys for dinner. His bluntness hurts and in a cruel way also validates to Carley her hard suspicions that the Murphys couldn’t really care about her and that she doesn’t belong.