The Life and Times of Kaylee S North

"She felt her face drawn puckered: two born dead one died the first year and one ran under like a dried yellow apple no she was only thirty-four years old, she was old."

My first reaction to this story was amazement at her ignorance of the situation. She gained weight, had morning sickness, shortness of breath, her husbands recent hapiness, and just about every other indicator for pregnancy. I knew she was pregnant from the beginning when she described what the fortune teller had told her. Although, I must admit that I thought that she would have fell down the stairs or something of that nature to end the childs life and probably hers simply due to the depressing nature of the previous O'Connors we've read.

She sees pregnancy and motherhood as being old and making her age rapidly. She views children as heathens and then refers to her brother as worthless... I think that there is association between her brother and her unborn fetus, or rather her idea of what the fetus will develop into.