What is Mrs. Winterbottom like?

Despite feeling unimportant in her family's life Phoebe's mother is actually central to the plot of the novel as it is her disappearance that brings Phoebe and Sal closer together. She is a stay at home mom who feels that everything that made ht a person in her own right has dwindled and that she is taken for granted by her family. She is focused on being proper and respectable which is why she kept the existence of her son a secret for so long. She seems poised to rediscover the person she was before cooking, cleaning and ironing took over her life and is discovering a courage she was not aware she had.