Thread by @lainasparetime

Okey-dokey. We've got a thread today that isn't necessarily long, but it is heavy, so shall we get to it?

Again, parental figure/grandparent death content warning here. This is a big one, and if you have to peace and mute this hashtag, we're cool. #LainaReadsAnne

#LainaReadsAnne Montgomery lost her grandfather shortly before writing Anne of Green Gables. Though it seems they may not have been very affectionate people, they raised her and it does feel as though a lot of this chapter perhaps reflects her own grief.

#LainaReadsAnne Either that or she just has a particular talent for making you feel sad as hell.

#LainaReadsAnne As you may have guessed from my lead-up here, when this chapter starts, Matthew collapses. They send Martin, the hired man, to get the doctor. He sends the Barrys over on his way by, and Mrs Rachel was visiting there, so she comes too.

#LainaReadsAnne Mrs Rachel gently pushes Anne and Marilla out of the way to check Matthew's pulse. She says, very gently, that he's passed away, and that, "When you've seen that look as often as I have you'll know what it means."

Oh, Mrs Rachel, I'm sorry.

#LainaReadsAnne The doctor comes and confirms it, and tells them it was instantaneous and probably painless. He thinks it was caused by a great shock, which is discovered to be the collapse of the Abbey Bank.

#LainaReadsAnne Avonlea does as a small, tightly-knit town often does and steps up to help Marilla and Anne as much as possible. The entire Barry family and Mrs Rachel even stay the night so they won't be alone.

#LainaReadsAnne Diana offers to sleep in Anne's room, but Anne wants to be alone to process things. She hasn't, really. She just feels numb.

#LainaReadsAnne Marilla is just devastated, her grief "breaking all the bounds of natural reserve and lifelong habit in its stormy rush". Diana understands that more than Anne's "tearless agony", but she does understand how to support a friend, so she gives Anne what she needs.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne falls asleep eventually from sheer exhaustion, still without having cried. It's not until she wakes up in the middle of the night and it's still true that she finally breaks down and weep her heart out.

#LainaReadsAnne Hearing her sobs, Marilla comes to comfort her and tries to tell her not to cry so, but really her heart doesn't seem to be in it. They're both in so much pain.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne asks what they'll do without Matthew.

Marilla says, "We've got each other, Anne. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here - if you'd never come. Oh, Anne, I know I've been kind of stict and harsh with you maybe - but you mustn't think I didn't (cont)

#LainaReadsAnne love you as well as Matthew did, for all that. I want to tell you now when I can. It's never been easy for me to say things out of my heart, but at times like this it's easier. I love you as dear as if you were my own flesh and blood (cont)

#LainaReadsAnne and you've been my joy and comfort ever since you came to Green Gables."

This is basically the first time Marilla has ever spoken so openly to Anne about her love for Anne, but it's not the first time we've seen how much she loves her, at all.

#LainaReadsAnne Marilla Cuthbert shows love in quiet ways for most of Anne's childhood. She makes sure Anne NEVER goes hungry which honestly I think probably happened before she came to Green Gables, she tries to make sure she's safe and happy and a good person.

#LainaReadsAnne I have SO MANY feels about people who act like because Marilla's love isn't showy and loud that it's any less deep or true. She just expresses it differently.

#LainaReadsAnne Two days later, Matthew is buried and eventually things begin to settle back into regularity. Anne struggles with this. Despite her hard beginning in life, she's never lost someone she's loved like this before.

#LainaReadsAnne Since her parents died when she was so, so young, it isn't exactly the same thing as this, you know? She feels guilty and ashamed for enjoying the beauty of nature and that Diana still can make her smile and laugh.

#LainaReadsAnne She talks to Mrs Allan about it, how it feels like disloyalty to laugh and find pleasure in things when someone she loved so dearly is gone and she misses him so much.

#LainaReadsAnne But Mrs Allan says that Matthew liked to hear Anne laugh very much and Anne's love of the world around her brought him great joy.

Mrs Allan is definitely a good one to have around when someone is grieving. She validate's Anne's feelings but still comforts her.

#LainaReadsAnne Soon, though, Anne says she has to go home as Marilla gets lonely at twilight. Mrs Allan worries she'll be more lonely when Anne goes away to college.

Anne doesn't reply to that.

#LainaReadsAnne Back at Green Gables, Marilla is sitting on the front doorstep and Anne sits down next to her. Marila says she'll be going to the eye specialist tomorrow.

#LainaReadsAnne There's baking and ironing to do and Anne promises she'll take care of it - without making any more liniment cakes. They start to reminince about Anne's scrapes and adventures growing up, and Marilla looks back with great fondness.

#LainaReadsAnne Side note, Anne is still in mourning black and Josie Pye made a crack about her black dress making her hair look redder. Are you kidding me, Josie? What is wrong with you???

#LainaReadsAnne Anne has basically given up on trying to like Josie Pye. Marilla says that "Josie is a Pye" and so "she can't help being disagreeable".

Go off, Marilla. I'm right there with you.

#LainaReadsAnne We do get an update on the others, though. Josie, Moody Spurgeon, and Charlie Sloane are all going back to Queen's next year. Jane Andrews and Ruby Gillis both going back to teach and have schools assigned to them already.

#LainaReadsAnne Marilla asks if Gilbert is going to teach, too, and Anne confirms, marking probably the first time Anne has ever answered a question about Gilbert Blythe without sarcasm or annoyance.

#LainaReadsAnne And then we get probably our first real piece of Marilla backstory. She mentions that Gilbert looks a great deal like his father did at the same age.

#LainaReadsAnne Apparently John Blythe and Marilla were close friends. People even called him Marilla's beau. Confirming that Gilbert's father is an older gentleman to have a son his age, too, really, since Marilla is around sixty.

#LainaReadsAnne They had a fight. Marilla didn't forgive her when he asked her to - she says she wanted to "punish him first" and he didn't try again. The "Blythes were all mighty independent" she says, and that she's always wished she'd forgiven him when she had the chance.

#LainaReadsAnne She hadn't thought of it in years, til she saw Gilbert in church on Sunday.

Sound familiar? I've said a few times Anne and Marilla are more alike than either realizes.

#LainaReadsAnne "So you've had a bit of romance in your life, too," Anne says to Marilla and that's... an interesting way to phrase it. I want to talk about this a bit.

#LainaReadsAnne Basically never in the book has "romance" meant romantic love, as we've previously discussed. Marilla says OTHERS called John her beau, but doesn't confirm or claim that herself. It's almost an afterthought.

#LainaReadsAnne She speaks instead of regret over ending their friendship. I think here "romance" is again being used in the sense of adventure or excitement, not as a romantic love.

#LainaReadsAnne Much like how in Anne's life, her moments of "romance" aren't about romantic partners, but things like floating across the pond in a boat pretending to be a figure from Arthurian legend.

#LainaReadsAnne I have some big theories about arospec Marilla and queer Marilla in general, which I expect we'll examine more in future books. Same as Anne, amusingly. I have theories, but I want more evidence for them, so I'll keep them to myself for now.

#LainaReadsAnne And that is the end of the chapter. Tune in tomorrow for our last chapter of the book and... I'm not sure what else, quite yet. We'll see.