Before the Suicide
Nadia’s short life—not yet out of the teenage years—will forever be divided into two distinct part. There was her life before the suicide of her mother and then everything afterward. Imagery is effectively used to paint a portrait of life before and how quickly such jarring divisions can occur:
“She was startled by how rarely she had been alone back then. Her days felt like being handed from person to person like a baton, her calculus teacher passing her to her Spanish teacher to her chemistry teacher to her friends and back home to her parents. Then one day, her mother’s hand was gone and she’d fallen, clattering to the floor.”
Luke
The chasm in Nadia’s life left by the suicide of her mother is quickly filled by the arrival into that life of a young—if ever so slightly older—boy named Luke. Their relationship goes from zero to knowing the little things in record time. Among the little signs and hints she quickly comes to recognize and interpret are:
“How Luke wore his Fat Charlie’s T-shirt a size too small because it helped him earn more tips. How when he dropped to the edge of her bed without saying much, he was dreading a long shift, so she didn’t say much either, tugging his too-tight shirt over his head and running her hands over the expanse of his shoulders. She knew that being on his feet all day hurt his leg more than he ever admitted and sometimes, while he slept, she stared at the thin scar climbing toward his knee. Bones, like anything else, strong until they weren’t.”
Better Late Than
The Mothers arrive at a conclusion about imagery that acts as telling evidence about a very significant turn of events. It is so obvious…in retrospect. Unfortunately for them, the obvious aspect of this imagery as evidence becomes apparent only after the fact:
“Years later, we realized the watch should have us everything. Only two reasons a woman might have someone’s husband’s watch:
1. She’s sleeping with him.
2. She repairs watches.
Nadia Turner didn’t like a watchmaker to us.”
Ghost Eyes
The actual visual imagery associated with the term “ghost eyes” is technically known as heterochromia: having eyes that are two different colors. The metaphorical dimension of being born with ghosts eyes, according to the narrator, is that Latrice Sheppard—the character in question—was born with a unnatural ability to determine a victim of domestic abuse simply by looking at another girl:
“She saw past flawless skin to diamond-shaped iron burns, gashes from golden belt buckles, necks nicked by steak knives, lips split by class rings, faces blooming purple and deep blue. She’d told Aubrey this the third time she’d invited her for tea, and after, Aubrey had stared into the mirror, wondering what else the first lady saw. Was her entire past written on her skin?”
