Abbey’s old house
 | This page is pretty raw LLM output. |
| Abbey's old house | |
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| First appearance | At Loose Ends, page 1 January 2, 2012 |
| Related characters | Abbey, Molly, Abraham, Charlotte |
Abbey’s old house is the house where Abbey spent his early childhood with his younger sister Molly and their parents, Charlotte and Abraham. It sits in Abbey’s old hometown, a bus ride out of Roseville, and it is seen only in Abbey’s memories: all five of its appearances are flashbacks in At Loose Ends.
Description
The house stands in a residential neighborhood in the town Abbey still calls “back home.”[1] The home of Abraham’s mistress, Cynthia, is only a corner away, and a neighbor lives close enough for little Molly to reach her door on her own.[2]
The comic never shows the outside of the house. In Abbey’s memories, only a doorway, a bedside, or the corner of a room comes into view. The plain wooden front door opens straight into the living space.[3] The dialogue mentions a couch in the living room.[4] A lamp with a bulbous pink base sits on a small round table draped in a floor-length cloth.[5] Instead of a door, the room connects to the rest of the house through an open wall corner.[5] One bedroom is also shown, a modest room with a bed, a wooden headboard shelf holding books and small objects, a chest of drawers, and a woven basket by the doorway.[6]
History
Abbey remembers the house during the winter he spends searching for word of his mother in At Loose Ends. He never visits it in the present day. Instead, the memories come to him uninvited, set off by small things like a hand on his shoulder or Janet patting his head.[3][4]
Home life revolves around managing Abraham’s temper. In the chapter’s opening flashback, a very young Abbey bandages his mother’s injured arm while Molly sleeps in the next room, and Charlotte excuses Abraham’s abuse: “You know how your father is. How I can get on his nerves..”[6] She lives braced for her husband’s arrival, too — when Abbey slams the front door open one afternoon, she jolts in fear before realizing it is only her son.[3]
Charlotte is working gum out of Abbey’s hair, fondly recalling how she used to brush Abraham’s, when Abbey lets slip, “He’d let Cynthia do it.”[4] Her smile disappears on the spot.
After Charlotte learns about Cynthia, she and Abraham have a violent argument in the living room. Abbey hides behind the open wall corner while his parents shout, and Abraham reaches for the table lamp. The comic cuts away there.[5]
Abbey’s last memory of the house is from the night the family comes apart. Molly wanders in asking “I heard sounds.. Is Mommy okay?” and finds Charlotte lying unmoving on the floor.[8] Abbey writes a note for Molly to carry to the neighbors and charges out of the house after his father.[8][2] Abraham is arrested at Cynthia’s home that same night,[9][10] Charlotte later dies after surgery, and Abbey and Molly are placed in foster care.[11]
Trivia
- In her commentary on the gum-removal flashback, Veronica calls the chapter “very personal”: like Abbey, she experiences involuntary flashbacks set off by small sensations, and she wrote his memory sequences from that experience.[4]
- Veronica has said that on the final night, Abraham “absolutely went too far” and panicked when he realized Charlotte “wasn’t going to bounce back.” He planned to lay low with a relative or friend in another town, and “did not intend to kill her.”[12]
See also
References
- ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 7
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 27
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 13
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 23
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 24
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 1
- ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 1
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 26
- ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 28
- ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 30
- ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 43
- ↑ “hypothetical question: could Abbey also have a...” Tumblr. 2026-04-22.