‘Her hands are like my mother’s hands, but there is something else in them too,
something I have never felt before and have no name for’
Claire Keegan’s Foster is a short story which begins when an unnamed young
girl, without warning, is dropped by her father at the house of relatives for the
summer. Her mother is pregnant yet again, and her caring capacity is strained.
Home for the girl is a crowded, busy, and impersonal space in which she must
work to earn her place. Yet at the Kinsellas,’ she begins to understand family for
family’s sake, not as a gruff default or economic exchange. It is a hot summer,
and the warmth of her foster parents meets the warmth of the sun. She
mirrors her environment and unfurls into her potential.
In an interview with The Guardian, Keegan stated, “I don’t trust that home is
necessarily where one finds one’s happiness. Families can be awful places, just
as they can be glorious and loving.” Her description of family as a “place” is
reflected in the story, in which the familial space of the home plays an important
role. Through material clues in the house, the Kinsellas’ tragic past is alluded to.
The couple once had a young son who drowned in their slurry tank chasing after
the family dog. The girl wears his clothes and sleeps in a room wallpapered with
the youthful image of “trains of every colour.” Also present in the wallpaper
pattern is a “young boy” who “stands off in the distance, waving.” The boy in the
wallpaper may be an almost ghostly presence of the dead son. Yet this is not
frightening or supernatural due to his residing in the very regular and material
aspects of the home, underlining Keegan’s realist tone when dealing with
matters of grief, neglect, and family. Where the Kinsellas live with this
unimaginable loss, the girl becomes increasingly aware of the inadequacy of her
own domestic situation. Over the summer, the rough edges of their own families
begin to slot together and form a new unit.
But the summer is finite, and she must return to her home family. The new baby
has been born, and her sisters “seem different, thinner, and have nothing to
say.” Perhaps they have always been this way, but having felt the warm care of her foster family, it is brought into sharper focus. The girl finds it difficult to let the
couple go and launches herself into Mr Kinsella’s arms.
The story ends with “Daddy,’ I keep calling him, keep warning him. Daddy.” An echo of the found family trope, which has seen the unnamed girl heal and be healed by this grieving family, whose experience of unimaginable loss has led them on a path to love and familial redemption.
Illustration via Katya Roberts @katyaillustrates for The Student
