“There are always sides. There is always a winner, and a loser. For every person who gets, there's someone who must give.”
This phrase may be interpreted both in wide and narrow ways here. The first one concerns Anna and Kate’s whole life in the story. They had to make a choice, who of them would give something to the other: Anna – her body, or Kate – freedom to her sister. The second way is more primitive, it concerns the court: at first it seems that Anna doesn’t want to give something, she wants to be a winner at least now, ‘cause she has given so much before. But then, when the reader gets to know her true motifs, he/she actually doesn’t understand who is the winner in this situation, and who is the loser, and whether both of them must be at all.
“WE ARE ALL, I SUPPOSE, beholden to our parents—the question is, how much?”
This question seems to concern mostly Anna, Kate and Jessy in the storyline. It may seem that Kate is beholden to Sara and Brian the most, ‘cause they have spent the largest amount of their energy, money, attention to her. As for Anna and Jessy, they’ve got less attention from their parents, so they may “relax”, they aren’t beholden to their parents as their sister. But after reading the story the reader realizes that there is not actually a certain measure of obligation to parents: children must be thankful to their parents always and everywhere in the hugest “size” they can just because their parents love and appreciate them.
“Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed—sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be.”
Here Anna actually shows her basic life – she isn’t free, she doesn’t depend to herself. This blanket is like her environment, her parents, doctors – sometimes they really take care of her, cover her with love, but sometimes, when her sister needs some part of her body, they forget about Anna, the girl who “sits” inside of her, and they mercilessly use her.
