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It was strange—stupid, even—but she often felt like the only adult in her family,
Then Dad went off to Vietnam and got shot down and captured. Without him, Mama fell apart; that was when Leni first understood her mother’s fragility.
and so they moved. Then they moved again. And again. Nothing ever worked out the way he wanted.
On the other hand, it didn’t help to talk about her worries. What was the point of confession?
When she was younger, she’d sometimes wondered what good all those sorries were if nothing ever changed,
It’s like his back is broken, Mama had said, and you don’t stop loving a person when they’re hurt. You get stronger so they can lean on you. He needs me. Us.
compassion vs self-sacrifice. It’s easy to romanticize standing by someone who’s broken, but real love shouldn’t require becoming their crutch. It should involve support, not absorption.
She was used to her dad’s sadness, his frustration. He stopped sentences halfway through all the time, as if he were afraid of giving voice to scary or depressing thoughts. Leni knew about that reticence and understood it; lots of times it was better to stay silent.
“Sure I will, Red. Tomorrow will be better.” That was what her parents always said.
Leni heard his whispered “I’m sorry. Forgive me.” “Always,” Mama said, holding him as if she were afraid he’d push her away.
“I need this, Cora. I need a place where I can breathe again. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin. Up there, the flashbacks and shit will stop. I know it. We need this. We can go back to the way things were before ’Nam screwed me up.”
Leni saw Mama softening, reshaping her needs to match his, imagining this new personality: Alaskan.
Maybe she thought it was like EST or yoga or Buddhism. The answer. Where or when or what didn’t matter to Mama. All she cared about was him.
And I’ll cut back on drinking. I’ll go to that veterans’ support-group thing you want me to.” Leni had seen all of this before. Ultimately, it didn’t matter what she or Mama wanted. Dad wanted a new beginning. Needed it. And Mama needed him to be happy.
So they would try again in a new place, hoping geography would be the answer. They would go to Alaska in search of this new dream. Leni would do as she was asked and do it with a good attitude. She would be the new girl in school again. Because that was what love was.
Leni lay in her bed, listening to rain patter the roof, imagining the emergence of mushrooms beneath her window, their bulbous, poisonous tops pushing up through the mud, glistening temptingly.
It was what Mama always said. You and me. The connection between them a constant, a comfort, as if similarity reinforced the love between them.
“You’re thirteen. I’m thirty. I’m supposed to be a mother to you. I need to remember that.”
She always did as she was told. It made life easier.
“Don’t be impertinent, Coraline. You’re always welcome. Your father and I love you.”
“It’s my husband you wouldn’t allow in.” “He turned you against us. And all of your friends, I might add. He wanted you all to him—”
The chasm between the girl Mama had been raised to be and the woman she had become seemed impossible to cross.
“I love him, Mother. Can’t you understand that?” “Cora,” Grandma said softly. “Listen to me, please. You know he’s dangerous—”
Mama had quit high school and “lived on love.”
How could a mother and daughter fall so far apart?
Mama was Leni’s one true thing.
“Our new home. Even though it’s on the Kenai Peninsula, there are no roads to it. Massive glaciers and mountains cut Kaneq off from the mainland. So we have to fly or boat in.”
Fear is common sense up here.
He liked the nothingness he saw, the vast emptiness. It was what he’d come for.
This excitement is a trauma-driven high. He’s convinced that isolation will fix him. If he can control the environment, he can finally control his inner chaos. This mirrors how trauma survivors often externalize their healing by changing where they are instead of looking inward and focusing on inner transformation
he swept Mama into his arms, twirling her around. When he finally let her go, Mama stumbled back; she was laughing, but there was a kind of horror in her eyes.
At low tide, the property was inaccessible by boat.
An outhouse. An outhouse. “Holy shit,” Mama whispered.
The outhouse! The cherry on top that symbolizes their regression into primal survival and a physical reminder that comfort and civilization have been stripped away. The conditions of the cabin also symbolize the family’s dysfunction: chaotic, decaying, and neglected, just like their family dynamics. The location; isolated on a peninsula, surrounded by cliffs, and inaccessible by boat during low tide is the perfect reflection of emotional entrapment: there’s no easy way out.
She leaned against her mother. She knew what Mama was feeling right now, so Leni had to be strong. That was how they did it, she and Mama. They took turns being strong. It was how they’d gotten through the war years.
“We’ll be okay, won’t we? We don’t need a TV. Or running water. Or electricity.”
“We’ll make the best of it,” Leni said, trying to sound certain instead of worried. “And he’ll be happy this time.”
My heart breaks for Leni. Her bond with Cora is tender and supportive. They lean on each other like teammates. Leni has a closeness with her mother that gives her this false sense of security. Cora although loving she fails to put her daughter’s needs and even her own before her husband’s. Their mother/daughter bond is rooted on survival, not stability.
Leni saw her father frown. “You think we’re incompetent?”
“This is how we do it up here, Ernt,” Large Marge said. “Believe me, no matter how much you’ve read and studied, you can never quite prepare for your first Alaskan winter.”
dragging his wife and daughter into an environment that requires discipline, planning, and mental stability and he has none of those qualities.
Up here, there’s no one to tell you what to do or how to do it. We each survive our own way. If you’re tough enough, it’s heaven on earth.”
“Flashbacks? Nightmares?” “He hasn’t had one since we headed north.” “You’re an optimist,”
“It can come from anywhere. The weather and the isolation makes some people crazy.”
She knows…
They lived on a piece of land that couldn’t be accessed by water at low tide, on a peninsula with only a handful of people and hundreds of wild animals, in a climate harsh enough to kill you. There was no police station, no telephone service, no one to hear you scream.
(and up here the days were endless, sunlight lasted until almost midnight)
They looked to have been made of whatever was handy—sheets of plywood, corrugated plastic, skinned logs. A school bus with curtains in the windows sat on tireless rims, hip-deep in the mud.
This is Alaska! Where winters are unforgiving.
How are these people willingly surviving in these conditions. shacks built out of scraps and no electricity. I feel like I’m watching an episode of Alone but without the monetary reward.
Dad pulled free of Mama’s grasp. He grabbed the half gallon of whiskey he’d brought and opened the door and stepped down into the mud. He left the bus door open behind him.
The way he doesn’t even care. He’s reckless. He leaves them exposed to the obvious danger and chaos that’s surrounding them without any hesitation. Their safety isn’t a priority for him, his emotions are. Every action he takes is driven by impulse, not protection. he’s so consumed by his own storm that he forgets they’re standing in it too. That kind of neglect is its own form of abuse.
He cracked open the whiskey and lifted the bottle to his mouth, drinking deeply. Then he handed the jug to Dad, who drank for a long time before he handed the bottle back to Mad Earl.
Dos alcohólicos; estupendo!
We got Negroes calling themselves Black Panthers and raisin’ their fists at us, and illegal immigrants stealing our jobs.
Alcohólico y racista. Tremenda joyita el Don.
I think there’s another week of classes. School ends early up here so kids can work.”
There weren’t many of them, but they were friendly and welcoming. Each person they met gave them a gift: a hacksaw, a coil of rope, sheets of heavy plastic, rolls of duct tape, a bright silver knife called an ulu that was shaped like a fan.
These gifts are going to come with a price
“Weather’s unpredictable up here. Some years June is spring, July is summer, August is autumn, and everything else is winter.”
A woman has to be tough as steel up here, Cora. You can’t count on anyone to save you and your children. You have to be willing to save yourselves. And you have to learn fast.
