Missing Peace

In the couple of days that this story takes place, Lamort is confronted with issues she has been plague by her entire life. The theme of posterity is evident throughout the story. Lamort’s mother died while giving birth to her but her grandmother resents her for it and when Emilie is introduced, not as a typical journalist, but a writer for posterity, her grandmother seems to find it irrelevant and trivial. Lamort asked her grandmother what she said to Emilie and she responded, “That I already have posterity. I was once a baby and now I am an old woman. That is posterity.” Her grandmother may think it is a trifling issue or something that should be ignored, but to Lamort and Emilie who are both looking for something of their deceased mothers, posterity is all that matters. This makes a womanly bond between Lamort and Emilie. Emilie points out that, “they say a girl becomes a woman when she loses her mother…you, child, were born a woman.” Lamort could have found this by becoming a mother just in the beginning with Raymond but she would not have found (the missing…) peace. This is evident in the first few pages when Raymond says, “I know I can make you feel like a woman…so why don’t you let me?” but Lamort responds, “My grandmother says I can have babies”. He then has her remember the password so she could trust him as if they were a man and a woman but the password “peace” changes leaving Lamort to become a woman for herself.

After the confrontation with Toto and Raymond, Lamort and Emilie walk home disappointed. Emilie wants to write down their names but Lamort reluctantly quotes her grandmother, “’Wehave already had posterity,’ I said. ‘When?’ ‘We were babies and we grew old.’” The next morning, after Lamort gives her Toto and Raymond’s names, Emilie writes them down on the back of a photo of her mother and gives it to her – “…for posterity”. This photo, which is the physical form of posterity in the story, finally gives Lamort the strength to confront her grandmother and have her change her name from Lamort, to her mother’s, Marie Magdalene.