What binds us to our siblings? To our parents? We grow up with these people: confine ourselves in a house with them, we love them unconditionally. And why? Is it a habit of accustom? Studies have shown that certain phermones and smells emitted by parents bond them to their children, but beyond science there is an unjustifiable bond in family, something so hard to break that even when your family is as scattered as your monster addicted mother's brain after a line, they affect you deeply and irrevocably.
I just finished reading the book Fallout by Ellen Hopkins. I've read her other books and skimmed through this one, but had not read it in full. Curious to see what happened to Kristina, I picked up the lyrical third book in her much vaunted series and found that this book follows the lives of her three oldest children. I left Kristina when she was 19, with a one year old child and pregnant with a baby girl. Hunter, her eldest child, lived with her parents at the time. Kristina is going to jail and is at a loss of what to do and Hopkins picks up the story with Hunter, now almost 19.
Hunter is struggling with his relationship with his girlfriend, Nikki, and smokes pot (though is not really addicted). He doesn't know who his father is because his grandparents thought it best to not tell that he was a product of rape.
Hopkins then switches to Autumn, Kristina's second oldest child. Autumn has OCD and is living with her paternal grandpa (Trey, Kristina's former boyfriend's, boyfriend's father) and her aunt. Autumn lives a sheltered life, until she meets Bryce. Bryce is her first love, her first sex and her first date all rolled into one.
Finally there is Summer. Summer is living in foster care and has had a tough time. At 12 she was raped by one of her foster parents and has been moved from town to town ever since: a product of one of America's most inept systems. Summer has a boyfriend named Matt but is in love with his best friend, Kyle.*
One thing stood out to me in the book. It is a line from a poem from Summer (about Autumn):
"On the surface she is nothing like me.
But just below the skin,
we find a connection. I shudder
to think why that might be, because
our common denominator is
someone I don't want to resemble."
This line makes me think about what it must be like for the characters, to have a connection to someone which you don't want to have: to have a family you don't want to discover. However, somehow, I feel that these characters are who they are because of this connection. As I stated before, the bond that tethers them to each other is a part of who they are, something that is irrevocable.
Take Hunter for example, he feels lonely and left behind by his mother "spinning in a whirlwind of her dust". He craves affection from his girlfriend but it isn't enough. He cheats on her with groupies when she isn't enough. I think that he is searching for someone to fill the hole Kristina created. Because no matter what mother figure in his life tries to fill his hole, she is still not his mother.
Take Hunter for example, he feels lonely and left behind by his mother "spinning in a whirlwind of her dust". He craves affection from his girlfriend but it isn't enough. He cheats on her with groupies when she isn't enough. I think that he is searching for someone to fill the hole Kristina created. Because no matter what mother figure in his life tries to fill his hole, she is still not his mother.
Another example of this is Autumn. Autumn has OCD and, although she doesn't say it, she blames it partly on her mother. After all, Kristina was the one who dumped her with her boyfriend's father and never looked back. Autumn has grown up under her Grandpa's micro management and her Aunt's love. Autumn has such a dysfunctional family that she feels that everything else that can be perfect should be. Kristina was the one who left her here, so it's Kristina's fault.
Finally there is Summer. Summer, who has had the worst life of all. Summer, who knows a lot about her past but nothing about her future. Summer, who sees her mother sometimes and always ends up yelling at her. Behind the yelling, though, I see need. Need for stability in her life, need for someone to love her. Maybe this is why she runs away with Kyle. Kyle loves her, or does he? Will Summer get hurt even more? But most of all a Summer who needs a future so badly that she runs so far away that she almost dies. Summer wants to forget so much about the past that she is willing to do anything for the future.
However, though Kristina wrecks havoc through their lives, there is some of Kristina in each of them, whether they know it or not, that unalterable bind that will remain a part of them forever.
*Kristina has two other children who live with her and her boyfriend Ron.
