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Flesh and Blood

Summary: Flesh and Blood

This story is told in the first-person voice of Marie Kashpaw and happens concurrently with the last day of “The Plunge of the Brave” in the summer of 1957. It begins with canning apples and musing about Sister Leopolda’s declining health and Marie’s decision to visit her along with her daughter, Zelda. They bring a jar of canned crab apples. Marie is shocked to see Leopolda in her cell, reduced to a shriveled pile of bones, her hair white and exposed without her habit. She is still mean and prejudiced. As they talk, Leopolda dives into the sheets and emerges with a black iron spoon which she beats against the iron bed frame loudly and repeatedly. Marie realizes that she wants to own that spoon as a symbol of the nun’s hold on her. Marie tries to take it from Leopolda, but the old nun will not let go. 

To get the spoon, Marie asks Leopolda to bless Zelda, thinking she could grab the spoon, but she cannot. When she kneels herself, Marie is overcome with the memory of her earlier pain at Leopolda’s hand and realizes that Leopolda means to hit her with the spoon, so she rises to avoid it. The two women struggle, grinning at each other, and finally, the nun collapses and Marie leaves without the spoon. She returns home with Zelda. Nector is gone and the children are out hunting. Zelda finds Nector’s letter under the sugar jar and gives it to Marie who reads it and then puts it into her pocket. Holding a baby, Marie tells Zelda to go milk the cow as she contemplates the letter’s contents, that her husband is leaving her for Lulu. Marie peels potatoes and soon realizes that Zelda has read the letter and left to look for Nector. She peels more potatoes, imagining hurting Lulu and Nector but also realizing that she’s not angry. When the boys bring in a goose, Marie tells them it’s too hot to cook it indoors and sends them to build a fire in the outdoor stove. 

Even though it’s getting dark, Marie decides to wash the floor. As she kneels, scrubbing, she thinks of herself as “the woman who kept her floor clean even when left by her husband.” She decides to polish the floor. As she finishes, she hears Zelda and Nector come home. She puts the letter under the salt jar and decides that she will never mention it to Nector. She will keep him wondering about its location and whether she read it. Nector’s wondering would be her power.  

Analysis: Flesh and Blood

This story pairs with “The Plunge of the Brave” because it happens during the same time and in the same place, told by Marie rather than Nector. This story also completes “Saint Marie” because Marie returns to the convent and to Sister Leopolda, the nun who tortured her in her youth. In fact, this story reveals the ending of “The Plunge of Brave” because, by the end, Nector returns to Marie. Marie is actually the brave one here, not her husband. She is brave because she is willing to face the world without her husband. She is willing to face the gossip of losing her husband and her status in the community. She is brave to be willing to raise her children, her flesh and blood, alone. She is brave because she survives, and she survives because she chooses it.

Just as “The Plunge of the Brave” is dominated by water, this chapter, like the end of the previous one, is dominated by fire. The heat of the canning jars, the “prolonged heat of praying” that caused Sister Leopolda’s brain to boil, Marie’s scalded hand, the heat of the day, the fires of hell, and the fire outdoors to cook the goose all contribute to this motif. It evokes the fires of hell and the fires of redemption and rebirth. It foreshadows the accidental fire that will burn Lulu’s house down, an act that changes the trajectory of Lulu and Nector’s relationship. 

Marie tricks her husband in the end. She knows that Nector will never be sure where he put the letter. The trick is Marie’s way of holding power over Nector in a way similar to the way Sister Leopolda once held power over her. It is her way of holding on to her husband, by making him unsure of what she knows. Nector’s discomfort is Marie’s way of responding to his letter. Devilishly clever, sinister, and twisted, the trick is reminiscent of her relationship with Leopolda. 

Washing and waxing the floor is nearly religious for Marie. It comforts her to polish away the tarnish and the dirt. The kneeling, a Catholic gesture, mirrors what she has done with Sister Leopold. The act cleans her heart of the evil thoughts of harming Lulu and Nector in their shared bed. It is an act of salvation and redemption, capped off by trickery and cunning. In the end, Marie pulls Nector in, to the house, to the marriage, and to herself, frightening the husband who has rejected her and then returned.

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