What I Carry

Over the course of the novel, Muiriel’s character arc follows a trajectory from isolation to connection as she goes through the vital but complex process of healing and letting people in. Having lived her entire life in the foster care system, her experiences have taught her to self-protect against additional trauma and abandonment. She spends the first four years of her life with a couple that she thinks of as her parents, and with whom she was “so happy [and] comfortable. [Joellen] let [her] call them Mom and Dad because they insisted they were going to adopt [her]. But still they just kept…waiting. For something” (268). Ultimately, the couple sends Muiriel away once they learn they are having a biological child even though Muiriel’s chances of being adopted at her age are abysmal. Being used as a last resort and then discarded by people she considered her parents leaves Muiriel reluctant to get close to people again. Adding to her distrust of adoption, another couple nearly adopts her when she is in third grade and then changes their minds after she develops sleeping problems. Because Muiriel has been hurt and abandoned repeatedly when she lets people in, she learns to keep emotional distance from others.