Time of the Child

“The doctor registered it but looked away without enlightenment. It would not be until the night of the Christmas Fair that he would remember it. Then Jude Quinlan would be standing at the front door, with the child in his arms. The doctor looked away. He reached for the top bar of the pew in the reflex that comes before rising. But he did not rise. All of which happened in the paused time in which story stretches to allow for the four dimensions of human nature.”

The author uses foreshadowing to create narrative tension and mystery. Because the narrator has access to events beyond the characters’ immediate consciousnesses, the narrator can predict the night they will find the baby. Foreshadowing this event establishes an anticipatory mood and mobilizes the otherwise static narrative plotline.

“From a love affair without end, fields were some part-submerged, and would stay that way until spring when, if a fine spell came, for a time the love would go the other way. They were fields with the soil washed away, and then washed away some more, in a timeless surrender or slow return to when the world was water. The ground was mud, thin-skinned with a shallow benevolence of grass that acted as glue. Animals out on it all months of the year, it was pocked in all the places that were not stone. […] In a December light, weak and watered, was a palpable sense of the year thinning out.”

The detailed description of the Faha landscape creates a leaden narrative mood. Jack is studying his surroundings as he drives, observations that instigate this descriptive moment. The way he sees Faha conveys the predictability of the place and thus displays his sense of entrapment, emphasizing The Interplay Between Stasis and Change. The cycles of the river, mud, grass, rain, and animals are inevitable, which is how Jack sees his present and future in Faha.

“Into his moustache, he sighed audibly. But he did not tell the boy he should leave Ronnie alone. He had not said a single word more. Not one. That is what he assured himself one week later when, noticing that Noel Crowe had not called to the house for some days, he chanced, ‘The boy of the Crowes’, he hasn’t…?’ And Ronnie, lost in The Lake, said only, ‘He’s gone to the States.’”

The author uses a flashback to provide insight into Noel Crowe and Ronnie Troy’s history. Jack is remembering one of the last times he saw Noel. He is trying to justify what happened between him, the boy, and his daughter to make sense of his involvement in Noel and Ronnie’s seemingly unrequited romance. The recollected scene also foreshadows Jack’s coming determination to arrange Noel and Ronnie’s marriage.

“The moment he saw the name on the blackboard in Ronnie’s hand, he knew he was mistaken, knew in the way she had not met his eyes but had looked away, as though from the memory of love, knew not only that his eldest daughter had not forgotten Noel Crowe, which was in the make-up of her nature, but more, that she had cared deeply for him. And cared still.”

Jack’s keen observations of Ronnie’s mannerisms and demeanor capture his desire to understand his daughter. Steeped in his heartbreak, Jack interprets Ronnie’s behavior according to his own emotional experience. The repetition of the word “knew” highlights Jack’s attempt to reconcile with and convince himself of what he believes about Ronnie and Noel.

“Laying his head, what was coming to him was the idea that if a body could exhaust itself in living, so could a heart. Could a human heart be filled to capacity, like any other vessel? Could you reach the point of being unable to take on more care?”

The micro setting of Jack’s private chambers allows a shift into Jack’s private thoughts. The intimate space of his room offers Jack the chance to think and question in a vulnerable manner. Indeed, the latter two lines highlight Jack’s longing and fatigue, evidenced by feeling like his heart is “filled to capacity” and like he cannot “take on more care.”

“From both, they got greetings and good lucks, and Pat gave them back, taking from both, who knows how, the inference that today was going to be his lucky day. His son could see it land on him, the same as a white dove. He could feel the fluttering come into him, and when his father clapped his hands together with an ‘All right by God,’ he feared the night’s porter still in him and the day’s footing already awry.”

The narrator uses figurative language to convey Jude Quinlan’s desperation for newness and redemption. They describe Pat’s hopefulness as “a white dove” and Jude’s emotional response as a “fluttering” inside of him. These images conjure archetypal images of hope, peace, and renewal and convey Jude’s longing for a miracle. At the same time, the narrative tone shifts in the latter line in accordance with Jude’s simultaneous doubt that his life can change.

“He was a boy, unremarked; if called upon he’d help any, and be glad of it, but mostly he was on his own, silent, standing, walking on a bit, standing again. Over his imagination the Christmas Fair had a mesmeric hold. He watched all, not only for the ticketless performances of buyer and seller, but also because the thing his father had said he had said with conviction that some element of it had stuck to his son. Today’s the day.”

The Christmas Fair setting influences Jude’s interiority. Moving through the fair affords Jude a sense of hope and possibility. The narrator uses diction like “glad,” “imagination,” “mesmeric,” and “conviction” to describe the setting’s impact on Jude’s emotions. A young boy in need of excitement, newness, and possibility, the fair helps him believe in the possibility of change.

“Sitting on the kerbstone of his brother’s grave, not for the first time had he wondered why it was he was the one saved. Not for the first time wished that he wasn’t. Worthiness was a standard that rose while you lived, failing it the experience of every day. Added to this was the unanswerable question of what his life was to become. If saved, for what?”

Jude’s external surroundings influence his thought patterns. He is physically situated on his brother’s grave, which compels him to reflect on Patrick’s death and his part in it. He is in the graveyard—a setting symbolic of death—and thus begins to question the meaning of his own life. The passage reveals Jude’s reflective nature and illustrates how his past continues to shadow his life in the present.

“He reached into his pocket and found the sixpence. He held it out in his palm, as if showing the silver and the hound on it. Then he bent down and placed it on the ground. He said no words. It was a place older than language, but he expressed his intention all the same, that in exchange for the sixpence the fairies send the luck. What that would be, the fairies would decide; he would trust them, his silent covenant, because, in the adage of his mother, beggars couldn’t be choosers.”

The image of Jude giving the coin to the fairies is symbolic of hope and faith. He is not abiding by the traditions of the Catholic faith. Rather, his behavior in this scene conveys his imagination and capacity for belief in other divine powers. Putting his fate in the hands of the fairies is Jude’s version of spirituality and an extension of his childlike nature.

“She knew too that she could not change this, could not convince her sister of a contrary truth: that although she understood everything Charlotte thought of Faha, though like all small places it was confining, Ronnie had come to the understanding that for her it was also freeing, and she never wanted to leave it. This was home. More, with a conviction she knew could not be explained, she felt it was where she was supposed to be.”

Ronnie’s interaction with her sister Charlotte compels her to defend her life to herself. She doesn’t articulate her feelings about Faha to her sister, but her internal monologue conveys her attempts to reconcile with her lifestyle and circumstances. Furthermore, the passage captures how the Faha setting influences each of the characters in different ways—for Ronnie, it offers a sense of belonging, even if fraught.

“To still her mind, and to confirm to herself that somehow she had managed it all, she sat to the desk and began to write the day as a story. It was her first time thinking of Faha as a place where anything happened. The first time her imagination came home, is how she would think of it. Which was terrifying and freeing at the same time. For it meant that she too was home.”

This passage uses flashbacks to convey Ronnie’s intimate attachment to storytelling. Ronnie remembers when her relationship with writing changed—a recollection that conveys the pastime’s symbolic significance to her character. In writing her own stories, Ronnie can process her experiences and create a sense of home and belonging for herself.

“She tried again. And again after that, and though she shushed, soothed and rocked, and made the sounds that were the ones all mothers made, the baby would not drink. Ronnie knew it was her fault. It was not the rudimentary contraption with the rubber tubing. There was some primal failure and inadequacy in her. The baby knew. She knew that Ronnie was not her mother. She knew the world had betrayed her, that the first covenant had been broken, and she was landed in a displacement in which she could trust no one.”

Ronnie’s initial interactions with the baby compel her to question who she has been and who she’s capable of being. A single and unmarried woman without children, Ronnie fears that her inability to calm Noelle is a sign of her deficiency, evidenced by the statement “There was some primal failure and inadequacy in her.” The baby is thus disrupting her predictable world and challenging her to ask difficult questions about herself and her capabilities.

“‘You are. You are a very good girl. Now let’s see if we can do this. Up you go.’ She stood and let the baby on to her left shoulder, patting its back as she walked once more down the kitchen. ‘There, or like this? Is that better? I think yes that’s better, isn’t it? You have to teach me. All right? You teach me what you need. Good girl. Yes. You like that, don’t you? OK. OK now. We are OK. We are OK.’”

The way that Ronnie talks to Noelle shows her desire to love and care for the baby. She uses short, fragmented sentences, which establish a heartfelt tone. She is asking the baby questions because she’s eager to connect and communicate with Noelle authentically. Her halting and questioning syntax also emphasizes her active work to understand Noelle and adjust to her new maternal role.

“Father and daughter shared the look of ones whose plan has no second page. Then the doctor, who had a lifetime of emergencies behind him, said, ‘We do not get to live only the best parts of life. We will work out something. When I come back with the bottle, I will light all the fires. You will be able to bring her upstairs.’”

Jack addresses Ronnie using simple sentences and an assured tone. As Ronnie’s father, he wants to comfort and console Ronnie. He wants to believe that his past experiences—the “lifetime of emergencies” he’s lived through—have prepared him for this present moment and made him capable of protecting Ronnie and Noelle. The passage thus reiterates Jack’s caring nature and The Strength of Familial Bonds.

“It was mechanics, not miracle. He took no personal credit. On this he was clear. It had nothing to do with him, he had done nothing any mildly knowledgeable medical person wouldn’t have done. The heart is an engine, it had started again, was the all of it. This much he could settle now in the cold light of the morning, though when he had washed his hands in the basin, he had had to still their tremor.”

Jack’s reflections on saving Noelle’s life convey his complex belief system. As a doctor, Jack believes more in science than he does in religion. He’s thus reluctant to call Noelle’s seeming resurrection a “miracle.” At the same time, his practical way of thinking does nothing to quell the tremor in his hands described in the final line of the passage. Jack wants to apply logic to his current situation, but his body knows that he’s found himself in an unprecedented experience.

“‘Katherine Hepburn’s favorite, so it is,’ said Mrs. Griffin. The doctor let the brim of his hat shield his eyes, the only visible signs that his heart had been pierced a jump in his chin and a rise in his gorge.”

Jack has a physiological response to receiving the perfume at the pharmacy. The narrator describes his emotional reaction using diction like “pierced,” “jump,” “rise,” and “gorge”—vocabulary that shows the perfume’s power to awaken Jack’s memories of Annie. The passage thus underscores the perfume’s symbolic resonance within Jack’s storyline.

“With the mesmerism that happens when your parent shows you a home movie from before you were born, Ronnie looked. But she looked away when she thought what she was seeing was a moment from her own babyhood. She could not remember her father dancing with her, but he must have, she thought. He must have. The knowledge had such bittersweetness, like apples in Faha, for it recalled an Eden she felt the loss of, without any memory of being there. She looked back, and this time let out a ‘ha!’ that was shorthand for amazement.”

Watching Jack dance with Noelle compels Ronnie to reflect on her childhood. She is observing her father in the present moment while imagining her past at the same time. The confluence of these temporal realms captures the emotional significance of this intimate scene. Furthermore, the narrative allusion to the Garden of Eden reiterates the baby’s archetypal and mythic resonance within the overarching narrative.

“He could not have explained why but he knew that what happened next mattered enormously; he could not have reasoned it out in front of judge and jury, but it was a fact to him, same as his own blood and the light in which it lived. What happens here, what I choose to do, matters. He was not an innocent, nor did he fool himself. […] But still, he could not escape a burdened sense of consequence and importance, for the child, for his daughter, and for himself.”

Jack’s internal monologue has a desperate and determined tone. Jack is trying to reconcile with his current circumstances and make sense of his role in Ronnie’s and Noelle’s fates. The narrator’s use of negation, anaphora, and repetition highlights Jack’s self-awareness and self-reflectiveness.

“‘There is a child.’ It was a behavior unlike himself, but had the alibi of a baby and an eldest daughter who was attached to it in a bond that he would rather die than break. So, in a whisper that was as unnecessary as it was guilty, Doctor Troy told Mrs. Crowe the story he had invented as solution to the triangular problem of a love with the one side missing.”

Aine Crowe’s character is a narrative device used to conjure Jack’s vulnerability. Throughout the novel, Jack largely keeps to himself and hides his longings and anxieties. Because Aine is dying, he feels comfortable confiding in her. This visit thus inspires Jack to articulate his complex experience—a moment that marks a turning point in his character arc.

“Then, by a prompt too deep inside him to explain, he lowered his head to the child and whispered, ‘I loved Annie Mooney.’ There was instant relief in it, and pleasure too, and though the baby’s expression did not change he found he wanted to say the name again, and he did, a summons and confession both, this time changing the tense of the verb from past to present, which changed nothing but brought his contained smile, and joined him and infant in a further conspiracy of the heart.”

Baby Noelle helps Jack to confront and reconcile with his past experiences and continued heartbreak. He confides in Noelle and begins to tell her his and Annie’s story because the baby is innocent and softens his heart. Sharing his story in turn attaches him to Noelle and underscores the strength of familial bonds.

“She knew she was already changed by the experience of having the child in the house. She had not given birth to it, but from round-the-clock company and care, she knew she was different. How exactly escaped definition, it was inside her, but in the moment the priest asked, she feared it was on the outside too.”

Father Coffey’s unexpected visit to Avalon House compels Ronnie to reflect on The Redemptive Power of Love. She has indeed fallen in love with Noelle. When Coffey observes her with the baby, Ronnie begins to imagine herself through his lens. His presence thus grants her perspective on how her life and character have evolved since caring for Noelle.

“Love. That’s my understanding. And that’s what’s in that kitchen. That’s what came to this house the day of the fair. And that’s what I am going to try and keep alive. You can go ahead now and tell me where I’ve gone wrong. Father.”

Jack uses direct language to communicate his beliefs to Father Coffey. He is explaining his protectiveness of Ronnie and Noelle and thus arguing in the name of love. His words have an honest and open tone, which endears him to Coffey.

“Absence is its own presence; it occupies the same space. This was the doctor’s conclusion when he woke the third time. Something was gone; it was absent, and could not be recovered, and what that was, was hope.”

Ronnie and Noelle’s disappearance from Avalon House makes Jack feel hopeless. Noelle is symbolic of hope; therefore, when Ronnie leaves with her, Jack feels emotionally unmoored. The baby has enlivened him and Ronnie. Without the possibility of a future as a family, Jack despairs. The narrator uses descriptive, figurative language to highlight the emotionality of this moment.