Before We Were Yours

“The woman has no way of knowing her child’s fate or if she does know, the medications will cause the memory of it to be nothing but a blur.”

The situation in the Prelude section of the novel is largely imaginary. It is a scene that is guessed at more than known. But the woman giving birth here is a stand in for so many women. Poor, unwed, illiterate women were targeted when still medicated to the point of incoherence to sign paperwork for their children. They didn’t know what they were signing, and they had no idea that they were sealing their children’s fate and giving them away. This is what happened to Briny. Paperwork was given to him while he was in a vulnerable state and his lack of education and raw emotions were exploited so Miss Tann could acquire the Foss children as goods to sell off. 

“If my mother is intimately involved in the micro aspects of our lives, such as fretting over lint and planning for the family Christmas photo in July, my father is the opposite. He is distant—an island of staunch maleness in a household of women.” 

The quote indicts just how controlled Avery’s life is by her family and by her mother in particular, who needs Avery and the family in general to appear just so. Image is deeply important to her mother as is family standing, hence Avery’s alliance with Elliot, which will join two influential families. The quote also hints at the possibility of closeness and openness that seem to exist more readily between women in the space of the novel.