This beautifully written novel by Australian author Alice Nelson shows what good can come when damaged people take care of one another. Constance, a Rwandan refugee, disappears one Christmas, abandoning her two year old son with Marina, knowing she feels more love for him than Constance ever can.
Marina lives in a large brownstone in Harlem, New York and is acutely aware of the multiple privileges she enjoys compared to Constance, not just in terms of affluence but also a fulfilling career, loving relationships and the comfort of living in a place where she knows she belongs. Her dealings with Constance are frequently awkward; she doesn’t know Constance’s personal story as a refugee but suspects it involves great loss and brutality. She witnesses the utter lack of affection and warmth in the way Constance deals with her son, Gabriel, but doesn’t judge her for it. She cannot imagine how difficult the world is for Constance. Her attempts at conversations with her are mostly greeted with a stony silence;
”Marina often felt inept when she was with Constance and yet there was a sense that with every hour they spent togetherness they were binding themselves to each other in an unspoken but irreversible pact.”
Marina’s husband is baffled by the protective role Marina voluntarily assumes in the life of Constance and Gabriel. His reaction to Marina assuming full time care of Gabriel is not recorded but we assume he comes around eventually, as he is a good man.
We the readers are privileged to learn what becomes of Constance after she leaves her son, although Gabriel and Marina never do. Again, we see Constance through the eyes of another, in this case an elderly nun, but we are never given insight into her inner life. She seems to find some sort of peace with the order of elderly nuns; she cares enough to feed the birds in winter time and we understand this represents a kind of healing, of coming alive, for her. She allows the nuns to believe her son is dead but actually he is just beginning another life orchestrated by her, with more joy in it than the one she could give him.
All the characters in The Children’s House are fully drawn and their interactions with one another believable. There are no bad guys and no easy answers. Instead it shows the role maternal love has played in the lives of so many of the characters. It suggests the consequences of a mother being unable to show or feel that love can be devastating, but are not necessarily catastrophic. Others can step in to fill the void if they are permitted to. It is ultimately a hopeful and warm novel, beautifully paced for a long slow day of rewarding reading. I can’t wait to see what Alice Nelson does next.
