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Well, if it makes a difference to them, the hell with them, too. I can’t see why it’s such a big deal. Who cares how you get here? I don’t care. I really don’t care. I got myself born, that’s what counts. I’m here.

This thought occurs at the end of Chapter 1, when Molly considers how others will react to the knowledge that she’s an illegitimate child. Molly’s fierce dismissal of all those who would dare disapprove of her marks a turning point in her own self-development, as in the novel. Though she has always been brazen and strong-willed as a child, Molly definitively decides at this point that she will remain forever unapologetic in the face of social disapprobation. In choosing this course of action, she defines the pattern of conflict she’ll face for the rest of her life. Those who would disavow and ostracize Molly, whom she refers to as “them,” are her antagonists. Molly is admirably fearless in making this declaration, especially when we consider her willingness to forswear Carrie, the only mother she has known. However, her “me-versus-them” mentality faces its ultimate test when the main point of contention in Molly’s life shifts from her bastard status to her lesbian one. She soon discovers that lesbianism is a vastly more polarizing issue than bastardization.

The second half of the phrase again underlines Molly’s resistance to being defined by her past. Both a declaration and a challenge, her final sentence—“I’m here”—establishes and affirms her place in the world and demands that she be taken at face value. On a subtler note, Molly’s “I’m here” also refers to the novel as a whole. The story Molly narrates is her coming-out story, in which she charts the personal problems she confronts as she attempts to integrate herself into society while growing up. But whereas most coming-out stories are accompanied by the anxiety and frustration of going public as a lesbian, Molly arrives fully formed and boldly demands to be dealt with on the basis of her character and actions, not her origins or sexual preferences.

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