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The Good Tears

Summary: The Good Tears

Narrated by Lulu Lamartine in 1982, this story happens in two parts. In Part 1, Lulu reminisces about her past, as early as age seven, when she discovers a dead man in her woodland playhouse and studies his corpse, even under his pants. She learns about death and cries out all her tears on the school bus on the last day of that summer. Lulu admits that love has always dominated her life. She also admits that she neither cared for nor believed in human measurement. When the government, represented by Nector Kashpaw himself who served as tribal chief, wanted to take her land, Lulu appeared before the tribal council and argued her case, that the land was hers and she had every right to stay. She accuses the tribe of licking the crumbs of the United States government and sacrificing its own integrity to build a factory that makes trinkets. Lulu reveals that she knows that Nector burned her house because she saw the hate in his eyes when she told him she was going to marry Bev Lamartine. 

Lulu recalls the night of the fire and how she ran into the burning house to find Lyman who was hiding in her closet. She saved him but lost all her hair in the process. She agreed to accept the reparation of a new house on a piece of land that overlooked the town from above. Lulu says that her only daughter, Bonita, was born when she was almost fifty and that Bonita’s father was a Mexican itinerant beet harvester. Lulu’s new home became a beehive of family and visitors. When she was sixty-five, she moved to the Senior Citizens home and started over. 

Part 2 tells about Lulu’s time at the Senior Citizens home. She is losing her sight, but she knows Nector when she first runs into him there. When Lulu tries to speak to Nector as he tries to buy candy from a vending machine, he doesn’t remember who she is. Lulu thinks about Marie and tries to get to know her but hesitates. Lulu is away having eye surgery when Nector dies. When Lyman drives her back to the home, he gives her the news of Nector’s death and asks if Nector was her boyfriend. Lulu does not tell Lyman that Nector is his father. She says that the day Henry Junior died was her worst day, and that she believes that drowning is the worst death because the souls wander aimlessly forever. She grieves the loss of Nector, but he comes to her in the night. 

After Lulu’s eye surgery, Marie volunteers to help take care of Lulu as her eyes heal. The two women share coffee and listen to music together. They do not discuss Nector at all. Instead, Lulu tips her head back and allows Marie to remove the tape from her eyes and apply the healing eye drops. After Marie wipes the drops from Lulu’s eyes, Lulu sees Marie, standing, swaying, “huge and blurred, the way a mother must look to her just born child.” 

Analysis: The Good Tears

In many ways, this story is about loss. Lulu loses her innocence when she sees and explores the dead man in the woods. She loses her ability to shed tears. She loses her house and her hair in the fire. She loses her land. She lost her second husband, Henry, and lost Bev because he already had a wife. She lost her son, Henry Junior, the worst hurt she ever experienced. Lyman is never the same after Henry’s death. Lulu loses her eyesight and she loses Nector, who has already lost his memory and much of his mind. However, in the end, Lulu gains a friend in Marie. As Lulu regains her eyesight, she also gains a deeper insight into life and love. She gains the “knowledge that whatever had happened the night before, and in the past, would finally be over once my bandages came off.” As she and Marie bond over their love for Nector, she realizes that even in old age, people can learn new things.

The redemptive power of love is at play in this story, too, and Lulu embodies love. She states, “I was in love with the whole world and all that lived in its rainy arms.” Lulu is with many men, but she loves them all. She never stops loving Nector, and neither does Marie. So much is resolved in this part of the novel, conflicts between the past and the present, and tensions among the messy love triangle of Nector, Marie, and Lulu. When the women make their peace at the end of this story, it is a sacred moment. When Marie puts the drops into Lulu’s eyes, Lulu realizes that her sight is returning. It is a moment of maternal caretaking and a healing moment for eyes and souls.

In this chapter, Erdrich paints Lulu as a strong, independent woman who fights the patriarchy again and again. She refuses to deny her sexuality and is even willing to name the fathers of all her sons. Lulu’s courage is revealed when she stands in front of the tribal council to argue for her own integrity and that of the whole tribe. She survives the boarding school and rebounds from many losses. By refusing to cry, Lulu looks loss in the eye and says she will win. Like Marie, Lulu overcomes adversity with love, but her strength, not magic, is the source her power.

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