LaRose

Tuberculosis enters the boarding house where the first LaRose sleeps, killing some and infecting LaRose. Wolfred greets her when she leaves the boarding house, dressed in the latest white woman fashion, although he does not recognize her at first. They journey toward his farm. As soon as the sunlight hits her throat, LaRose sheds the restricting clothes required by the mission teachers. She takes Wolfred into the tall grass. “They rolled in berries, smashing them like blood, like childbirth. Everything would happen to them. They’d be one. They’d be everyone” (190). They talk about wedding dresses, and LaRose stifles a tubercular cough, believing she’s getting better. Wolfred builds a cabin that will eventually become the Irons’ house, and they have sex and procreate. LaRose and Wolfred dismantle the fashionable clothes to make things for the babies. LaRose teaches them English and Ojibwe. For 10 years, LaRose fights off tuberculosis but finally succumbs to it. Wolfred and their children care for her, but she is terrified she will infect them. Wolfred takes her to a new treatment center in St. Paul, which specializes in cave therapy for tuberculosis. At first, the doctor refuses her, but once another patient dies he acquiesces.