How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
What I really meant was, "How can she not come back to me? She loves me." (22.16)
We can only imagine what it would be like to have a parent leave us: it makes a kid feel pretty darn inadequate. But what we really want to know is, if she hadn't been killed in a bus crash, do you think she would have returned to Bybanks?
Quote #8
I could not imagine why she had chosen Idaho. I thought perhaps she had opened an atlas and pointed a finger at any old spot, but later I learned that she had a cousin in Lewiston, Idaho. "I haven't seen her for fifteen years," my mother said, "and that's good because she'll tell me what I'm really like."
"I could tell you that, Sugar," my father said.
"No, I mean before I was a wife and a mother. I mean underneath, where I am Chanhassen." (23.6-8)
It seems like Chanhassen can only identify as a wife and a mother, and not as a human being with her own personality, hopes, and dreams. But what is identity if not who you are to your loved ones? What else is there? What do you think?
Quote #9
The one thing we could not do was settle on a name. Nothing seemed quite right. Nothing was perfect enough for this baby. My father seemed more worried about this than my mother. "Something will come to us," my mother said. "The perfect name will arrive in the air one day." (23.18)
Names are pretty important to Chanhassen – her name helps her get a sense of her own identity – so it seems strange she'd just leave the name of her unborn child to whim or chance.