Dear Mr. Henshaw Family Quotes

Families are where we get the DNA that makes us look the way we do. The stuff our parents and grandparents pass down to us includes more than just looks, though. Leigh seems to have a personality more like Mom's, too. But in this sentence, we think Leigh is talking about more than that. Is he trying to console himself about just having Mom around?

You could look at a dozen pictures of a dozen families, and they could all look different: a mom and dad, a mom and dad with a kid, a mom with lots of kids, a granddad with a kid. To Mr. Henshaw, Leigh defines his family as split right down the middle, and it's now just a mom and her boy. We don't know for sure, but it seems like Leigh never saw the divorce coming; at least, he doesn't say that. It must have felt like a sudden, terrible jolt.

This is Leigh's simple explanation for the divorce. Of course, people don't get divorced over a truck. The truck just symbolizes the life on the road that Dad wants. It lets the reader know why Mom finally draws the line and decides to divorce Dad. When Dad bought the new truck, it showed her that he'd never give up his wandering lifestyle.