Without notice, Pearl quits her job and runs away with her two kids and a man in a red Geo. Quoyle returns home and is informed by Mrs. Moosup that his wife had taken the kids away and was going to leave them with someone in Connecticut. Quoyle is completely shocked and says, "She took the kids? She'd never take the kids" (22). His reaction shows that he really doesn't even know his own wife, because doing something like this wasn't exactly "crazy" for her. It is also strange that he can't believe she would do it considering her feelings towards the kids. When Petal found out she was pregnant, "she threw her purse on the floor like a dagger, kicked her shoes at Quoyle and said she'd get an abortion" (23). So, it is obvious that she never really wanted kids in the first place, so she finds it easy to get rid of them.
Instead of being angry at Pearl for taking away the most valuable things in his life, he sort of blames himself. He says, "Some people probably thought she was bad, but I think she was starved for love. I think she just couldn't get enough love. That's why she was the way she was. Deep down she didn't have a good opinion of herself. Those things she did-they reassured her for a little while. I wasn't enough for her" (24). Quoyle's reaction to what Pearl did is very unnormal for a situation like that. Usually, the person would usually being raging with anger and hate, but Quoyle tries to reason out why she would do it and find a way to justify what she did. Although it shows that Quoyle has very good character, it also shows his weakness because he turns the situation around to make it seem like he caused her to do it, when he didn't.
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