Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed

Author:Jennie Melamed
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2017-07-24T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Six

Vanessa

For the next few days, all the girls can talk about is the Other Island. To Vanessa, this shows that their perspective is weak, for there could be dozens or even hundreds of islands. She still feels depressed by the prospect, as it leaves her as impotent as she’s ever been, but the other girls adore the concept. Each has made up an island in her head and claimed it as her own.

Letty’s is cold all year round and covered in snow. People live in snow houses and eat squirrels and winter berries. There’s no summer, but it doesn’t matter, because only the children are brave enough to go out into the cold. They hunt and gather while parents and babies huddle inside.

Nina’s island is up in the sky, floating. If you get too close to the edge you might fall off and smash into bits.

Rosie’s island has only women, and they can have babies without men, just by deciding to. The mothers farm, cook, carve, and hunt while the daughters take care of littler daughters. At night they go to a special part of the woods, where they sing and tell stories, and then sleep in a big pile together. There’s always someone awake to watch for danger while the others sleep.

Leah’s island is overrun with dogs that live with the inhabitants, keeping them warm and catching them food. On her island, nobody ever drowns puppies, and they are all allowed to live and have their own families. Each child has two parents and ten dogs. The dogs eat at the table with the children, sleep on their bed with them, protect them, and escort them around. When there is a new litter of puppies, everyone celebrates like a baby boy was born, and then decides who needs more dogs.

Vanessa can’t conjure up a dream world. All she can think of is Janey’s voice whispering “Nothing will be any different.” She doesn’t know why the church meeting bothers her; she never expected to do anything but get married, have two children, and send them off to summer. She will persuade Father to give her his library, or at least some of it, and she’ll read all the time. When she is old, she and her husband will take a final draft and die. Her children, or perhaps someone else’s children, will take over their house, and her body will rot in the fields. She’s never been thrilled about any of it, but it always seemed inevitable, so she never considered any other option.

Now that there might be different possibilities, the idea of this ordained future keeps circling back to vex her. She tries to comfort herself with the idea that once her childbearing is done, she can read whenever she wants, but she still feels a sense of staleness and boredom. Nothing will be any different. All of their futures are interchangeable. Other than the defectives, they will all grow up, marry, have children, die.

The other girls are bubbling with creativity and laughter, which only makes Vanessa feel even sadder.

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