The Mothers

The collective narrative voice of the church mothers, introduced in the novel’s opening sentence, functions as a symbol for the inescapable presence of community judgment. Functioning like a Greek chorus, the Mothers’ omniscient “we” frames the narrative, revealing that in their tight-knit world, no secret remains private for long. They confess their role as conduits of gossip from the start: “All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we’d taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon” (2). This admission establishes their voice not just as a storytelling device, but as the very engine of the theme concerning the corrosive power of secrets. Their knowledge, whether complete or speculative, shapes the lives of Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey, demonstrating that community memory is a force as potent and defining as any individual choice. The Mothers are the living embodiment of the past, their collective memory ensuring that no transgression is ever truly forgotten.

This collective also embodies a communal, and often critical, form of motherhood, one that stands in judgment over the younger generation’s choices.