Before We Were Yours

by

Lisa Wingate

Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall Character Analysis

The second protagonist one of the narrators, along with Avery. At 12 years old, Rill is the oldest child of Briny and Queenie and takes care of her younger siblings: Camellia, Lark, Fern, and Gabion. Queenie goes into premature labor and Briny is forced to leave the children on the family’s shanty boat to bring Queenie to a hospital with the help of Old Zede. The next day, Zede returns and tells Rill that Queenie is alright, but that her twin babies were stillborn. Zede goes back to the hospital but leaves Silas with them. Silas realizes there’s someone in the forest nearby and indicates to Rill that she and her siblings should hide, but they come out when Rill hears a man who sounds like a police officer choking Silas. The man tells Rill he’s bringing them to the hospital. Although Rill doesn’t believe him, they go with him in his boat. In Memphis, Rill and her siblings are given to Georgia Tann, who drops them off at an orphanage under the care of Ida Murphy. They are given new names (Rill is renamed May Weathers) and offered up for adoption. One by one, May is forced to watch her siblings disappear: Gabion, Lark, and Fern are adopted, but Camellia mysteriously disappears after being sexually assaulted by Mr. Riggs, a groundskeeper. Later, May is adopted by the same couple who adopted Fern. Determined to return home, May takes Fern to find their parents on the river. Unfortunately, when they find the boat, they learn that Queenie has died, and that Briny is an alcoholic. One night, Briny unties their boat from the shore during a storm and it’s destroyed; Briny is never seen again. Shaken, May decides to take Fern back to their adoptive parents. May has a happy life (her last name changes to Crandall at some point, so she presumably gets married) and she eventually discovering the whereabouts of Lark and Judy Stafford—one of Queenie’s twins that was supposedly stillborn. However, she never finds her other siblings. After learning this about story—and about the deaths of Fern and Lark—Avery Stafford (Judy’s granddaughter) arranges for May to live in the same senior care facility as Judy.

Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall Quotes in Before We Were Yours

The Before We Were Yours quotes below are all either spoken by Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall or refer to Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Personal Identity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

I scroll to the photo, look into the face of the young woman who reminds me even more of my grandmother now that I’m right across the table from her. “She had this picture. Do you know the person in it?” Maybe these are woodpile relatives? People my grandmother doesn’t want to acknowledge as part of the family tree? Every clan must have a few of those. Perhaps there was a cousin who ran off with the wrong sort of man and got pregnant?

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall , Judy Myers Stafford
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

“Poor little waifs,” she says to the man. “We take them in when they are unwanted and unloved. We provide them with all that their parents cannot or will not give them.”

I bolt my eyes to the ground and make fists behind my back. It’s a lie, I wish I could scream at the man. My mama and daddy want us. They love us. So did the father who came to see his little boy, Lonnie, and ended up broke down on the porch crying like a baby when they said Lonnie’d been adopted.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Georgia Tann (speaker), Mary Anne “Queenie” Anthony, B. A. “Briny” Foss
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:

I lose track of her voice as the car goes over a hill and comes within sight of the river. May fades like a speck of sun on the water, and Rill comes out. She stretches toward the crack at the top of the window, and pulls in air and catches all the familiar scents.

For just a minute, she’s home.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker)
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

Inside my skin, I’m empty and cold, like the Indian caves where Briny took us camping one time when we hiked up over the bluffs. There were bones in the caves. Dead bones of people who are gone. There are dead bones in me.

Rill Foss can’t breathe in this place. She doesn’t live here. Only May Weathers does. Rill Foss lives down on the river. She’s the princess of Kingdom Arcadia.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), B. A. “Briny” Foss
Page Number: 156
Explanation and Analysis:

Her hand is knotted in a fist between us. I take it in mine, pry open her fingers to see what she’s holding, and the minute I do, all the cookies and ice cream from the party come up in my throat. Dirty, round peppermints are stuck so tight to my sister’s palm, they’re melted into her skin.

I close my eyes and shake my head and try not to know, but I do. My mind drags me kicking and screaming to Mrs. Murphy’s cellar, into the dark corner behind the stairs where ash coats the coal bin and the boiler furnace. I see thin, strong arms fighting, legs thrashing around. I see a big hand closing over a screaming mouth, the dirty, oily fingers squeezing so hard they leave four round bruises.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Camellia Foss/Iris Weathers , Mr. Riggs
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

Even the name sounds strange in my mind now. People keep calling me May. Maybe Rill’s still on the river someplace with Camellia, and Lark, and Fern, and Gabion. Maybe they’re drifting down in the lazy low-water summer currents, watching boats pass and barges go by and Cooper’s hawks circle wide and slow, hunting for fish to dive after.

Maybe Rill is only a story I read, like Huck Finn and Jim. Maybe I’m not even Rill and never was.

I turn and run down the steps and across the yard, my dress sweeping up around my legs. I stretch out my arms and throw back my head and make my own breeze, and for a minute, I find Rill again. I’m her.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Fern Foss/Beth Weathers, Camellia Foss/Iris Weathers , Lark Foss/Bonnie Weathers, Gabion “Gabby” Foss/Robby Weathers
Page Number: 175-176
Explanation and Analysis:

I drop her on the cot and turn away and grab my hair and pull until it hurts. I want to pull all of it out. I want a pain that has a beginning and an end, not one that goes on forever and cuts all the way to the bone.

This pain is changing me into a girl I don’t even know.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Fern Foss/Beth Weathers
Page Number: 180-181
Explanation and Analysis:

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you invented some ridiculous story about your fictitious sister and poor Mr. Riggs.”

Blood pounds in my head. I try to make sense of what she’s saying, but I can’t.

“There never was any… Camellia. You and I both know that, don’t we, May? There were four of you when you came here. Two little sisters and one little brother. Only four. And we’ve done a marvelous job in finding homes, thus far. Good homes. And for that, you are most grateful, aren’t you?” She motions to Mrs. Pulnik. […] “There will be no more of this nonsense out of you. Do you understand?”

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Georgia Tann (speaker), Fern Foss/Beth Weathers, Camellia Foss/Iris Weathers , Lark Foss/Bonnie Weathers, Gabion “Gabby” Foss/Robby Weathers, Mrs. Pulnik, Mr. Riggs, Miss Dodd
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

I crave a simple answer to all of this. One I can live with. I don’t want to find out that my grandmother was somehow paying penance for our family’s involvement with the Tennessee Children’s Home Society—that my grandfathers were among the many politicians who protected Georgia Tann and her network, who turned a blind eye to atrocities because powerful families did not want her crimes revealed or their own adoptions nullified.

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall , Judy Myers Stafford, Georgia Tann
Page Number: 224-225
Explanation and Analysis:

I try to imagine having a history like hers, having lived two lives, having been, effectively, two different people. I can’t. I’ve never known anything but the stalwart stronghold of the Stafford name and a family who supported me, nurtured me, loved me.

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall
Page Number: 228
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

“I only took it fo’ safekeepin’,” the woman says. She hands me the tin piece and the papers separately. “That cross been Queenie’s, long time ago. Miss Judy write the other. It’s her story, but she never write the rest. They decide they all gon’ carry it to they graves, I guess. But I figure somebody might come askin’ one day. Secrets ain’t a healthy thang. Secrets ain’t a healthy thang, no matter how old they is. Sometimes the oldest secrets is the worst of all. You take yo’ grandmother to see Miss May. The heart still knows. It still know who it loves.”

Related Characters: Hootsie (speaker), Avery Judith Stafford , Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall , Judy Myers Stafford, Mary Anne “Queenie” Anthony
Page Number: 296
Explanation and Analysis:

I think of the way May explained their choices: We were young women with lives and husbands and children by the time we were brought together again. We chose not to interfere with one another. It was enough for each of us to know that the others were well

But the truth is, it wasn’t enough. Even the ramparts of reputation, and ambition, and social position couldn’t erase the love of sisters, their bond with one another. Suddenly, the barriers that created their need for hidden lives and secret meeting places seem almost as cruel as those of brokered adoptions, altered paperwork, and forced separations.

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall , Judy Myers Stafford, Fern Foss/Beth Weathers, Lark Foss/Bonnie Weathers
Page Number: 298
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

The trees lean close after we turn, and I take one look back. I let the river wash away something inside of me.

It washes away the last of Rill Foss.

Rill Foss is princess of Kingdom Arcadia. The king is gone, and so is the kingdom.

Rill Foss has to die with it.

I’m May Weathers now.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), B. A. “Briny” Foss
Page Number: 311
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

May turns to me with purpose, stretches intimately close as if she plans to impart a secret. “A woman’s past need not predict her future. She can dance to new music if she chooses. Her own music. To hear the tune, she must only stop talking. To herself, I mean. We’re always trying to persuade ourselves of things.”

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker)
Page Number: 317
Explanation and Analysis:
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Before We Were Yours PDF

Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall Quotes in Before We Were Yours

The Before We Were Yours quotes below are all either spoken by Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall or refer to Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Personal Identity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

I scroll to the photo, look into the face of the young woman who reminds me even more of my grandmother now that I’m right across the table from her. “She had this picture. Do you know the person in it?” Maybe these are woodpile relatives? People my grandmother doesn’t want to acknowledge as part of the family tree? Every clan must have a few of those. Perhaps there was a cousin who ran off with the wrong sort of man and got pregnant?

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall , Judy Myers Stafford
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

“Poor little waifs,” she says to the man. “We take them in when they are unwanted and unloved. We provide them with all that their parents cannot or will not give them.”

I bolt my eyes to the ground and make fists behind my back. It’s a lie, I wish I could scream at the man. My mama and daddy want us. They love us. So did the father who came to see his little boy, Lonnie, and ended up broke down on the porch crying like a baby when they said Lonnie’d been adopted.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Georgia Tann (speaker), Mary Anne “Queenie” Anthony, B. A. “Briny” Foss
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:

I lose track of her voice as the car goes over a hill and comes within sight of the river. May fades like a speck of sun on the water, and Rill comes out. She stretches toward the crack at the top of the window, and pulls in air and catches all the familiar scents.

For just a minute, she’s home.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker)
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

Inside my skin, I’m empty and cold, like the Indian caves where Briny took us camping one time when we hiked up over the bluffs. There were bones in the caves. Dead bones of people who are gone. There are dead bones in me.

Rill Foss can’t breathe in this place. She doesn’t live here. Only May Weathers does. Rill Foss lives down on the river. She’s the princess of Kingdom Arcadia.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), B. A. “Briny” Foss
Page Number: 156
Explanation and Analysis:

Her hand is knotted in a fist between us. I take it in mine, pry open her fingers to see what she’s holding, and the minute I do, all the cookies and ice cream from the party come up in my throat. Dirty, round peppermints are stuck so tight to my sister’s palm, they’re melted into her skin.

I close my eyes and shake my head and try not to know, but I do. My mind drags me kicking and screaming to Mrs. Murphy’s cellar, into the dark corner behind the stairs where ash coats the coal bin and the boiler furnace. I see thin, strong arms fighting, legs thrashing around. I see a big hand closing over a screaming mouth, the dirty, oily fingers squeezing so hard they leave four round bruises.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Camellia Foss/Iris Weathers , Mr. Riggs
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

Even the name sounds strange in my mind now. People keep calling me May. Maybe Rill’s still on the river someplace with Camellia, and Lark, and Fern, and Gabion. Maybe they’re drifting down in the lazy low-water summer currents, watching boats pass and barges go by and Cooper’s hawks circle wide and slow, hunting for fish to dive after.

Maybe Rill is only a story I read, like Huck Finn and Jim. Maybe I’m not even Rill and never was.

I turn and run down the steps and across the yard, my dress sweeping up around my legs. I stretch out my arms and throw back my head and make my own breeze, and for a minute, I find Rill again. I’m her.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Fern Foss/Beth Weathers, Camellia Foss/Iris Weathers , Lark Foss/Bonnie Weathers, Gabion “Gabby” Foss/Robby Weathers
Page Number: 175-176
Explanation and Analysis:

I drop her on the cot and turn away and grab my hair and pull until it hurts. I want to pull all of it out. I want a pain that has a beginning and an end, not one that goes on forever and cuts all the way to the bone.

This pain is changing me into a girl I don’t even know.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Fern Foss/Beth Weathers
Page Number: 180-181
Explanation and Analysis:

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you invented some ridiculous story about your fictitious sister and poor Mr. Riggs.”

Blood pounds in my head. I try to make sense of what she’s saying, but I can’t.

“There never was any… Camellia. You and I both know that, don’t we, May? There were four of you when you came here. Two little sisters and one little brother. Only four. And we’ve done a marvelous job in finding homes, thus far. Good homes. And for that, you are most grateful, aren’t you?” She motions to Mrs. Pulnik. […] “There will be no more of this nonsense out of you. Do you understand?”

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Georgia Tann (speaker), Fern Foss/Beth Weathers, Camellia Foss/Iris Weathers , Lark Foss/Bonnie Weathers, Gabion “Gabby” Foss/Robby Weathers, Mrs. Pulnik, Mr. Riggs, Miss Dodd
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

I crave a simple answer to all of this. One I can live with. I don’t want to find out that my grandmother was somehow paying penance for our family’s involvement with the Tennessee Children’s Home Society—that my grandfathers were among the many politicians who protected Georgia Tann and her network, who turned a blind eye to atrocities because powerful families did not want her crimes revealed or their own adoptions nullified.

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall , Judy Myers Stafford, Georgia Tann
Page Number: 224-225
Explanation and Analysis:

I try to imagine having a history like hers, having lived two lives, having been, effectively, two different people. I can’t. I’ve never known anything but the stalwart stronghold of the Stafford name and a family who supported me, nurtured me, loved me.

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall
Page Number: 228
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

“I only took it fo’ safekeepin’,” the woman says. She hands me the tin piece and the papers separately. “That cross been Queenie’s, long time ago. Miss Judy write the other. It’s her story, but she never write the rest. They decide they all gon’ carry it to they graves, I guess. But I figure somebody might come askin’ one day. Secrets ain’t a healthy thang. Secrets ain’t a healthy thang, no matter how old they is. Sometimes the oldest secrets is the worst of all. You take yo’ grandmother to see Miss May. The heart still knows. It still know who it loves.”

Related Characters: Hootsie (speaker), Avery Judith Stafford , Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall , Judy Myers Stafford, Mary Anne “Queenie” Anthony
Page Number: 296
Explanation and Analysis:

I think of the way May explained their choices: We were young women with lives and husbands and children by the time we were brought together again. We chose not to interfere with one another. It was enough for each of us to know that the others were well

But the truth is, it wasn’t enough. Even the ramparts of reputation, and ambition, and social position couldn’t erase the love of sisters, their bond with one another. Suddenly, the barriers that created their need for hidden lives and secret meeting places seem almost as cruel as those of brokered adoptions, altered paperwork, and forced separations.

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall , Judy Myers Stafford, Fern Foss/Beth Weathers, Lark Foss/Bonnie Weathers
Page Number: 298
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

The trees lean close after we turn, and I take one look back. I let the river wash away something inside of me.

It washes away the last of Rill Foss.

Rill Foss is princess of Kingdom Arcadia. The king is gone, and so is the kingdom.

Rill Foss has to die with it.

I’m May Weathers now.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), B. A. “Briny” Foss
Page Number: 311
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

May turns to me with purpose, stretches intimately close as if she plans to impart a secret. “A woman’s past need not predict her future. She can dance to new music if she chooses. Her own music. To hear the tune, she must only stop talking. To herself, I mean. We’re always trying to persuade ourselves of things.”

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker)
Page Number: 317
Explanation and Analysis: