2-3-4 Challenge Book Discussions #1 discussion

Kate’s guilt over over not being able to save Rachael Slabaugh and over the death of Mose Slabaugh is understandable yet neither is her fault. Is her reaction excessive?

Kate herself reflects that she has invested a lot of herself in Rachael's situation. In the dream sequence, I felt she was reliving her own choice from her teen years and she tied her young self to Rachael's dilemma in her mind. The true situation was a shock, but Kate also was the only one who saw the truth with Rachael when the men were not so perceptive.

Do you mean Salome?

I sure did; I forgot Rachael was the mother and the effort to rescue her was the point of your question. Sorry. I maybe had better go back and see if I'm commenting on the right characters in other questions. Thanks for catching me. Should I just erase my answer above? I wanted to make the point about Kate's mental and emotional state somewhere in her relationship with the daughter. Is there a better place for this remark in message 2 above?

That's OK - there are a lot of characters to keep straight. Don't worry about erasing your comment because its clear what you meant :0)

I agree 100% about Kate identifying with Salome because of her own past, which actually makes Kate's ability to confront Salome at the end even more significant and really emphasizes Kate's strength of character.

I did think that her guilt over Rachael and Mose's deaths was a bit excessive considering that she could not have done anything to save Rachael and her shooting Mose was a clear case of self-defence not to mention that she thought he was a sociopath who had left two small boys to drown.

I felt awful for her about Rachael because her son's were counting on her to save their Mam. It was heartbreaking and I think her guilt centered around that failure and remembering how it felt when she lost hers.

Oops! I wasn't done:)

As far as Mose is concerned, I understand her guilt here on a completely different level. She's second guessing not only her decision to fire at him but also her not taking him into custody earlier. This one is going to haunt her for some time to come.

As far as her guilt being excessive, it definitely is for Rachael. She was gone before Kate really got a chance to try to save her.

Mose...her guilt is definitely understandable. She's going to play "what if" because she projected quite a bit of her own circumstances and past throughout the case, especially with Salome. I hope she remembers how many people that girl snookered until the end!