Before I Let Go

Josiah and Yasmen each take particular care with their appearance and in choosing tangible gifts for one another. Yasmen reflects on adjusting to the larger amount of closet space since the divorce and her secret talisman: Josiah’s prized Jordan sneakers. Yasmen briefly puts on the shoes, taking in her reflection, “wearing the shoes of the man she sent away. Portrait of a fool” (1354). Ryan thus telegraphs early on that while Yasmen may have asked for the divorce, she has not severed (or attempted to sever) her attachment to Josiah. At their Thanksgiving dinner, Josiah takes in Yasmen’s earrings and remembers that for the same birthday he had given her a necklace with a wheel charm to reflect their commitment to remain together “till the wheels fell off” (2845).

Later, the reader learns Yasmen is wearing the necklace with the charm and her original wedding ring on New Year’s Eve. After she assumes Josiah is back with Vashti, she hurls the necklace into Skyland’s fountain in hopes that discarding it will force her to fully accept her divorce and change her life. She soon changes her mind and fishes the necklace out of the fountain with help from Hendrix and Soledad.