The Testaments

Daisy’s parents are dead, she cannot return home, and a woman she barely knows has taken charge of her. Daisy tries to fall back on what is known and understandable. First, she says she will go back to school for help, then she suggests going to the police. When Ada rejects both ideas, Daisy is at a loss and relinquishes control of.

The strangeness continues when Ada takes her to the SanctuCare facility. There, she sees women who have escaped from Gilead. Daisy cannot understand why they are crying, now that they are finally safe. She thinks they should be happy, but from her present-day perspective, based on all that she has experienced between that day at SanctuCare and when she is being interviewed, Daisy knows why the women behaved as they did. “You hold it in, whatever it is, until you can make it through the worst part. Then, once you’re safe, you can cry all the tears you couldn’t waste time crying before” (123).

Daisy is still in shock, and she doesn’t cry. Everything seems unreal to her. Ada tells her to change into clothes that make her look like a completely different person, so that no one will recognize her, and Daisy wonders if she is being abducted. These are the kinds of dangers Canadian society teaches girls fear: how to avoid being abducted by human traffickers, how to say no to drug dealers, how to protect yourself from inappropriate sexual contact. No one has ever prepared Daisy for the murder of her parents.

This surrealness manifests itself in a physical way, as Daisy has difficulty walking. The ground feels spongy and insubstantial: “The world was no longer solid and dependable, it was porous and deceptive. Anything could disappear” (126). In the lives of children, nothing is more dependable than their parents. Take away that touchstone and the laws of the universe seem unstable as well.

When Daisy is confronted with the truth about her identity, she realizes that she does not know much about Neil and Melanie, their histories and background, but then wonders how much anyone knows about their parents. The biggest bombshell of all is Elijah’s disclosure that Daisy is the famous Baby Nicole. To the reader, there have been some clues along the way. Baby Nicole has appeared many times during the story; Daisy, Agnes, and Aunt Lydia have mentioned her, so there has been ample description of the importance of Baby Nicole inside and outside of Gilead. Neil and Melanie had worked hard to keep Daisy’s identity concealed, in ways that seemed to Daisy to be natural, overprotective parental impulses, but become clearer in the context of who Daisy actually is. It’s ironic that Daisy had once carelessly suggested that Canada should give Baby Nicole back to Gilead.