More so than any other character in the novel, Elizabeth represents love. Her children feel free to speak to her in a manner that they cannot communicate with their father. Roy says as much to her during their argument about Gabriel on the morning of John's birthday. He says, "[T]ell me how come he never let me talk to him like I talk to you?" Elizabeth is also the only person who remembers, or chooses to acknowledge, John's birthday. She is not able to give him much, but she gives him all that she can.
It is also significant that of all the marital and sexual relationships found in the novel, Elizabeth and Richard had the only alliance founded on love. Her marriage to Gabriel was based on hope that quickly disintegrated. Florence's marriage to Frank had affection and lust but nothing much deeper, and Gabriel's marriage to Deborah was more to spite the world than to love the woman. Although Deborah may have loved Gabriel — or at least respected him — the feeling was one sided. Richard loved Elizabeth just as much as she loved him, and their relationship was not built on lust or sex: They had been dating long before they began having intercourse. It is, perhaps, because of her love for Richard, that Elizabeth cherishes John as she does. He is all that she has left of the man whom she loved so desperately and the only reminder of the happy times she and Richard shared. Elizabeth's love for John is a natural continuation of her love for Richard. It should also be noted that Elizabeth is the only character the reader knows for certain to have had a healthy and loving relationship with her father. Gabriel's own father left shortly after his birth, just as Richard's had done. John never knew his biological father, and, as for the man he believes to be his father, he and his brother share a hatred for and a fear of him.
