The Things We Leave Unfinished

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses references to domestic violence that appear in The Things We Leave Unfinished.

In a letter to Jameson from the 1940s, Scarlett writes that she will wait for him “where the creek bends around the swaying aspen trees” (1). She will wait for the rest of her life, and she will love him for eternity.

In the present day, Georgia leaves the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in the small town of Poplar Grove, Colorado, with a new driver’s license replacing her ex-husband’s last name, Ellsworth, with her birth name, Stanton. The women at the DMV mention seeing news of her husband’s affair in the tabloids.

Georgia visits the bookstore and notices the shop next door is for sale. Georgia browses the romance section, looking at her great-grandmother’s books when a handsome out-of-towner enters. He expresses indignation over the covers of two Noah Harrison books, which are nearly identical. Georgia tells him the books all have the same plots, with tragedy and unsatisfying sex. The man says that romance books are full of nothing but “sex and unrealistic expectations” (8). He points to the