Betsy Zarkades

Quick Facts

• Role: Twelve-year-old daughter; the emotional barometer of the Zarkades home
• Family: Daughter of Jolene Zarkades and Michael Zarkades; older sister to Lulu Zarkades
• Age/Stage: Middle school preteen on the cusp of adolescence; a new track runner
• First Appearance: Early domestic scenes that establish the family’s strain before deployment
• Key Relationships: Parents (especially her father), Lulu, and childhood friend Seth Flynn

Who They Are

Betsy Zarkades is the novel’s clearest window into how war fractures a family. Entering adolescence with all its volatility, she begins as a status-conscious preteen whose world revolves around popularity and appearance. As the story progresses, Betsy becomes the “home front” incarnate—her moods, fears, and outbursts mapping directly onto the rising tensions between her parents and the shock waves of deployment, injury, and return. Through her, the book tracks the private costs of the Impact of War on Soldiers and Families, translating large-scale conflict into the ache of missed meets, unanswered texts, and quiet rooms.

Personality & Traits

Betsy’s prickliness is a shield. Beneath the eye-rolls and slammed doors is a child terrified of losing the family she knows, desperate for acceptance, and longing for a father’s steady attention. Her trajectory turns these raw adolescent impulses into empathy and resilience.

• Moody and performative: She leans into preteen theatrics—eye-rolling, door-slamming, dramatic exits—especially when she feels exposed by her mother’s uniform or her parents’ arguments.
• Socially anxious climber: Early on, she courts the approval of Sierra and Zoe, snubbing childhood friend Seth Flynn and snapping at Lulu to protect her status with “the populars.”
• Appearance-obsessed (and self-conscious): With “corn silk blond hair” in “fusilli curls,” “porcelain skin,” braces, and new breakouts, she fixates on flaws, fueling her fear of standing out for the wrong reasons.
• Deeply sensitive: Being ditched at her first track meet devastates her; overhearing “I don’t love you anymore” leaves a lasting crack in her sense of safety.
• Protective under pressure: She fights at school when classmates mock her mom’s military service, and later comforts Lulu, translating adult crises into kid-sized truths.
• A “daddy’s girl”: Michael’s attention functions like a weather system for her mood. When he’s absent or distracted, she spirals; when he shows up, she steadies.

Character Journey

Betsy’s arc runs from brittle self-absorption to hard-won empathy. Before deployment, she’s transfixed by middle-school hierarchies and mortified by anything that makes her look different—especially a mother in uniform. Jolene’s orders detonate that shallow world. Betsy lashes out—“You love the army more than us”—as popularity politics suddenly feel flimsy next to abandonment fears and the dread of combat. While Jolene is away, Betsy is forced to grow up fast: she starts her period with only her overwhelmed dad in a Walmart aisle and defends her mom’s honor at school, then comes home to an empty house one too many times. Jolene’s return, altered by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), reopens Betsy’s wounds: the mother who came back is not the mother who left. Running away with Seth to the Crab Pot to fetch a family Polaroid, she tries to hold onto a snapshot of “before”—proof that happiness once existed and might exist again. The tearful conversation that follows, in which mother and daughter name their fear and grief, moves Betsy toward compassion: she begins to understand trauma and Grief and Loss not as betrayals, but as realities love must learn to hold.

Key Relationships

• Jolene Zarkades: Their bond is a live wire, sparking with adolescent embarrassment and genuine love. Betsy is mortified by a mom who shows up in uniform, yet she’s also the first to defend Jolene when others mock her—an ambivalence that speaks to the tensions of Motherhood and Identity. After Jolene’s injury and distant return, their relationship rebuilds not through cheeriness but through honesty about pain.

• Michael Zarkades: As a self-declared “daddy’s girl,” Betsy needs Michael to be present and attuned; his missed track meet becomes a defining betrayal. When he steps up during Jolene’s deployment—fumbling, learning, showing up—Betsy learns to trust him again. Their repaired bond models the simple, daily work of love after disappointment.

• Lulu Zarkades: Betsy begins as the exasperated older sister who snaps to protect her social image. Crisis recasts her as caretaker: she soothes, translates, and shields Lulu from the worst of the adults’ turbulence, discovering steadiness in herself.

• Seth Flynn: Once discarded as “weird” in her chase for popularity, Seth becomes Betsy’s partner in truth-telling. Their reconciliation rejects middle-school cruelty and returns Betsy to loyalty and shared history—especially during the Crab Pot escape.

Defining Moments

Betsy’s story is punctuated by scenes where small, ordinary details carry outsized emotional weight. Each moment nudges her closer to maturity.

• The track meet: Michael forgets her first race, and Betsy is visibly heartbroken. Why it matters: It crystallizes how parental absence feels on the ground—public embarrassment as private abandonment—and propels her longing for reliability.
• Overhearing “I don’t love you anymore”: Hidden in the hallway, she hears Michael tell Jolene he no longer loves her. Why it matters: The line detonates her belief in family permanence and threads into the book’s meditation on Marriage, Love, and Forgiveness.
• Career Day humiliation: Betsy pleads with Jolene not to come in uniform, then suffers classmates’ mockery. Why it matters: Her shame reveals how patriotism collides with adolescent conformity—and how love can feel like exposure.
• Starting her period at Walmart (with Dad): A private rite of passage becomes a fluorescent-lit scramble. Why it matters: The scene distills how deployment warps childhood benchmarks, forcing premature independence while highlighting Michael’s clumsy but real care.
• School fight defending her mom: She throws punches when peers insult Jolene’s service. Why it matters: Beneath the embarrassment is fierce loyalty; Betsy will risk social standing—and suspension—for family.
• Running away to the Crab Pot for the Polaroid: She and Seth chase an image of “before.” Why it matters: The photo becomes a talisman of lost wholeness and a bridge to honest conversation about what’s changed and what can still be kept.
• Final reconciliation with Jolene: A teary, unguarded exchange restores their bond. Why it matters: Betsy chooses love not as denial but as recognition—seeing who her mother is now, and loving her anyway.

Essential Quotes

"Do not get out of the car," Betsy said sharply from the shadows of the backseat. "You’re wearing your uniform."

Betsy’s command is part fear, part performance. She’s trying to control how her peers see her, but the darkness of “the shadows” hints at how much of her identity she’s hiding to survive middle school.

"You love the army more than us," Betsy said.

This accusation translates a child’s abandonment terror into a blunt moral verdict. It’s less about literal priorities than about what Jolene’s departure feels like to Betsy: chosen, intentional, and personal.

"You said you’d be fine," Betsy yelled, her cheeks pink. "But you’re not. You can’t even take care of us. Why did you even come back?"

Post-deployment, Betsy names the gap between promises and reality. The question “Why did you even come back?” is a grief cry—anger as armor against the fear that the mother she needs no longer exists.

"I’m never supposed to come home to an empty house."

This line, simple and childlike, reveals Betsy’s core need: presence. In a home filled with adult crises, she articulates a boundary that feels sacred to her—someone should be there.

"I love you, Mom. To the moon and back. I should have said it when you left."

A return to the language of early childhood, this confession binds past and present. It’s both apology and promise, marking Betsy’s shift from reactive hurt to active love.