His life becomes chaotic through the loss of his son and his wife. Change occurs within in him, as his desperately tries to make order out of these events. "Oh, he'd raged at her and hated her and entirely forgotten her, at different times. He'd had moments when he imagined he'd never cared for her to begin with; only went after her because everybody else had. But the fact was, she was his best friend. The two of them had been through things that no one else in the world knew of. She was embedded in his life. It was much too late to root her out" (Tyler, p. 122).

Macon is unable to make sense out of his life and to restore it to his once, order world of work and organization. Edward, his spirited Corgi soon replaces Sarah as a symbol of chaos in the life of Macon. Edward has a source of chaos throughout the novel in the form of another character with whom he has a relationship. Edward easily fills this need for something to organize. Macon desperately tries to asset "orderliness" on Edward through his failed training efforts. Muriel, steps in to fill the role of restoring order to Macon's chaotic world, first through getting Edward to listen.

"Edward looked uncomfortable; he gazed off toward...

Then slowly, slowly, one forepaw crumpled. Then the other. He lowered himself by degrees until he was lying down" (Tyler, p. 169).
Macon comes to terms with the stagnation that had been his life before the series of tragedies in his life. Macon tells of Rose's ability to break free of stagnation, perhaps as a reflection of his own feelings. He says of her, "Since she'd met Julian she'd grown so airy…so flippant, lacking in depth" (Tyler, p. 246). This is perhaps a feeling of his own feelings upon breaking free of the stagnation that had been his own world for so many years.

As Macon's world moves from orderliness to chaos, from which he cannot recover, it changes Macon in a way that he never expected. He cannot make sense of his world without someone else to help put the pieces back together. Muriel provides the help that he needs and he is able to return to his orderliness, but without a sense of stagnation. Through his journey from orderliness to chaos and back to orderliness, Macon is transformed in a way that he never imagined.