Salvage the Bones

When the chapter opens, Esch is comforting Skeet as he fears that he has lost China. While hugging him, she thinks that her “arms had never been so strong” (238). She also directly contrasts this act of affection and support to the way she used to give her body over to boys because “It was easier to let them get what they wanted instead of denying them, instead of making them see” (238). In offering Skeetah her love and affection freely, she discovers that she is capable of the same sort of nurturing that China is and, like her, will “make them know” (175) it. Her comment also echoes Skeetah’s belief about women’s strength and the power of motherhood.

Esch’s description of the awesome might of hurricane Katrina similarly draws attention to female strength: “Katrina surprised everyone with her uncompromising strength, her forcefulness, the way she lingered; she made things happen that had never happened before” (248). However, she complicates the association between women, strength and motherhood when she characterizes the hurricane as a “mother that swept into the Gulf and slaughtered…She left us to learn to crawl. She left us to salvage” (255). Both Hurricane Katrina and China are used to discuss and investigate motherhood and the relationship between creation and destruction. In Chapter 10, Esch herself comments that the rain will wash everything clean, that she can start again after Manny’s rejection. She later notes that the hurricane has changed Skeetah as well, as he deals with the loss of China: “…and when he sees her, his face will break and run water, and it will wear away, like water does, the heart of stone left by her leaving” (258).

Further to this, Esch makes one final comparison between herself and China: “…she will know I have kept watch, that I have fought. China will bark and call me sister…She will know that I am a mother” (258). Here, Esch finally acknowledges and accepts the kind of strength and determination that being a mother brings with it.