The River Between Us

“I don’t know what my mother thought. I know she didn’t like to hear about that particular ghost. Too close to home, I suppose.”

In this passage, Howard’s dad is talking about the ghost of an old woman who is often seen near his childhood home. Though Howard doesn’t know this, the ghost is of his great-grandmother, who drowned herself in the river. This quote foreshadows later events and sets the supernatural tone for the story.

“‘Tilly!’ Mama called out to me from the kitchen. ‘Go find Cass.’”

This is the first line of Chapter 2 and introduces Tilly. Immediately, she is tasked by her mother to care for her siblings. This line frames Tilly’s role as the reliable child and shows Mama’s dependence upon her.

“It wasn’t any use to holler for Cass from the porch. Up in her private places on her hill, she was deaf unto the world. Cass was a terrible worry to Mama, and I thought anything that worried Mama ought to worry me.”

This quote introduces many important dynamics. First, it shows that Cass is worrisome. She has a habit of disappearing and becoming deaf to the world, thus requiring Tilly to find her. It also further develops Tilly’s role in the family. Tilly feels that she should be bothered by anything that bothers her mother; this dynamic comes into play multiple times throughout the book. Her role as the reliable, dependable child is highlighted here.

“To me, a riverboat was a palace. The flair of gold chimney stacks belched flame colored smoke into the night. Below them the decks glowed like a gingerbread wedding cake.”

Here, Tilly describes the steamboat on which Delphine and Calinda arrive in Grand Tower. This quote is full of rich imagery, painting steamboats as magnificent and fancy, just like Delphine when she steps off the boat. It also demonstrates Tilly’s small-town perspective. She has never left Grand Tower and can only compare the boat to objects she is familiar with, such as a wedding cake.

“In place of a bonnet or traveling hat, her head was tied up in a bandana. It was of some fine silken material, and the tails of the knot were artfully arranged.”

In this passage, Tilly is describing Calinda and introduces one of the most important symbols in the story: tignons. Tignons represent free women of color and are a symbol of racial pride. Tilly does not know what they are called or understand their significance. If anyone in Grand Tower recognized the tignon and understood its significance, Delphine and Calinda would be recognized immediately as free women of color.

“A law on the books said that black people weren’t allowed into Illinois. We paid no attention to that, of course. There were plenty of black people in the state. And they were all free.”

Here, The Pruitt family is trying to figure out the dynamic that exists between Delphine and Calinda. Tilly and her mother assume that Calinda is enslaved by Delphine, causing Tilly to wonder what will happen to Calinda if they are discovered. This quote provides important historical and cultural context for the era and setting of the book. While Illinois is remembered as a Union state, Grand Tower lies far south in the state and is very Southern-sympathizing when the book begins.

“We set two places for our company. I don’t know if you could call Mama an abolitionist or not, but she took a very dim view of slavery and slave owners, and didn’t care who knew it. In the state of Illinois, even this far south, Calinda would sit at the table with the rest of us.”

This passage is similar to the previous one, providing important historical and cultural context. However, it also characterizes Mama and reinforces the fact that the Pruitt family sympathizes with the Union. This introduces tension with Delphine, who openly supports the Confederacy.

“I fell back in the chair. That was the longest speech that ever come out of that boy’s mouth. Was he running for office? But then Cass was chirpier too this morning. We were all changed overnight.”

This quote is Tilly’s reaction to hearing her normally quiet brother talking passionately about Grand Tower to Delphine. Although this is Delphine and Calinda’s first morning with the Pruitt family, Tilly already sees changes in her siblings.

“Real abolitionists wouldn’t eat rice or cane sugar or anything the south produced. We dug right in. My insides didn’t know which way to turn.”

In this passage, Tilly is eating and enjoying the jambalaya Calinda prepared from the rations she and Delphine packed from New Orleans. This quote highlights a subtle effect of the war on Tilly and her lifestyle. She is conflicted because she wants to enjoy the meal, but she realizes that the ingredients were likely derived from the labor of enslaved people, and she does not want to support that.

“Now I stole every look I could get in Delphine’s mirror. It was gold with violets painted on the back. I wasn’t overly encouraged by what I saw, but it made me so real. I’m not sure that I knew I existed and took up space of my own before I saw me in that mirror.”

After Delphine tells her mother where she and Calinda are staying, her mother continues to send trunks to Grand Tower. A beautiful hand mirror is included in one of the trunks. This quote shows Tilly’s character growth as she begins to understand that she takes up space and influences the lives of people around her.

“There was a rumor going around that Calinda was an escaped slave. And for giving her shelter, the Pruitts were being called republicans. Before Fort Sumter, an escaped slave was apt to be sold back to the south. Now it was only talk. But why an escaped slave would bring her mistress with her nobody seemed to know.”

This quote provides historical and cultural context, explaining what would happen to a self-emancipated person in the novel’s time period and setting. It also explains exactly why Delphine and Calinda want to keep their identities a secret. They are free women of color, but prevalent racist attitudes continue to endanger them. These attitudes drive Calinda’s later decision to leave Grand Tower and protect Delphine’s biracial origins from being discovered.

“I suppose it give Mama comfort to know she’d be laid out in such delicate raiment. In the long run, she was never to wear it at all. Nobody did. It’s up there in the death drawer yet.”

As a thank you for hosting Delphine, Delphine’s mother gifts Mama a beautiful gown. Though she is hesitant to accept it, Mama decides to keep it in the “death drawer” where the family’s nicest clothes are kept for the sole purpose of being eventual burial garments. This quote foreshadows Mama’s death. It also demonstrates Tilly’s way of speaking.

“She was so silent that I didn’t know what woke me. But she was bent in agony. One hand clutched the other arm and she rocked back and forth, gray with pain.”

For the first time since Calinda arrives, Tilly wakes up in the middle of the night to see Cass having a vision. Unbeknownst to Tilly, Cass is prophetically experiencing the Battle of Belmont, in which Noah loses his arm. This is a foreshadowing of Noah’s injury and amputation.

“Was the tignon a sign and proof of slavery that would shame Cass, that scrawny scrap of white humanity? We’d seen pictures of slave women with their heads tied up in kerchiefs, like Calinda’s, though not so elegant. But Delphine, with her eyes still crackling, snapped across the laundry pot at me, ‘She has not earned the tignon, your sister!” And what that could mean, I couldn’t think.”

In this passage, Delphine notices Cass wearing one of Calinda’s tignons and furiously threatens to throw it in the fire if she ever sees it on Cass’s head again. Tilly doesn’t understand why Delphine becomes upset and assumes the tignon is a symbol of enslavement; it is actually a symbol of free women of color. Delphine’s intense pride in her identity and heritage is evident in the way she will not allow Cass to wear a symbol of racial freedom when she does not understand what it means to Delphine and her people.

“‘No, I’m not sorry they come. […] Before she come, I wouldn’t have answered back to them battleaxes. That Delphine don’t lack confidence in herself. I’ll give her that. I believe a little has wore off on me. She put some starch in my spine.’ I hadn’t thought of such a thing. I didn’t know grown up people changed, or were changed. I thought being grown up was safer than that.”

After the women from town warn Mama that the Pruitt family is on thin ice for hosting Delphine and Calinda, Tilly asks Mama if she wishes Delphine and Calinda had not come. This quote is Mama’s response and summarizes the ways that Delphine and Calinda positively influence the Pruitts.

“Though we rarely touched, I put my hand on her shoulder for however that might help. But she jerked herself away as if my touch had burned her. I had nothing she wanted. She wanted Noah.”

Here, Noah has just left for the war, and Tilly tries to comfort Mama. This quote encapsulates the way that Mama’s attitude toward Tilly changes and hints at the way she will treat Tilly in subsequent chapters. Despite everything Tilly does for Mama, Mama still favors her son and wants him back.

“She whipped around, quick, her hair flying, like she heard Noah’s footfall on the porch. And I saw I lost her. She’d been whittled to madness by her fear. She looked back at me, one last time. The merciful dark hid her face. ‘I waited for his Paw to come home. I wore out with waiting. And what for? I won’t wait for Noah. I ain’t got that kind of time now. Don’t come back without him. I can spare you. I can’t spare him.’”

This quote shows Mama’s descent into madness and highlights the change in her relationship with Tilly. While Noah was always her favorite child, he is now the only one Mama cares about. Her need for Noah to return is rooted in her loss of her husband. Mama is willing to sacrifice Tilly to get Noah back, hurting her immensely. However, Tilly continues to be a dutiful child who does exactly what her mother asks. This quote is the inciting incident for Tilly’s journey to Cairo, which shapes the rest of her life.

“‘You are not an officer to command me. And me, I am not a soldier.’ She pointed herself out with a gloved finger. ‘And if I was, I wouldn’t be soldiering on this side. Get the quilt,’ she said to me.”

In this passage, Delphine demonstrates her resolve by forcing Dr. Hutchings to take her and Tilly to the hospital tent where Noah is. Until this point, Delphine was been passive, allowing others to serve her. Here, she is bold and forceful, showing her tenacity.

“We slept fast and deep through the brief nights, and hardly had the time to look up from our days, or to notice that we weren’t girls anymore.”

Tilly and Delphine come of age while nursing Union soldiers in Cairo. They are forced to grow up and mature quickly because of the war, demonstrating another effect of war. They must rise to the occasion and meet the needs around them because no one else is there to do so; this exposes them to things they would never see outside the context of war.

“Another silence fell while the doctor saw he was in a room with too many women. She turned to him, showing us her hawk’s profile. ‘Ah declare, Doctor, just see what you have brought me. A colored gal.’”

This quote presents a massive shift in the story. Until this point, Delphine passes as a white southern belle, and no one questions her origins. Mrs. Hanrahan, however, recognizes the portrait of Delphine’s father and knows who Delphine is. This is significant because of the dangers of racism. Being recognized as a free Black woman in the Confederate-sympathizing landlady’s home places Delphine in a precarious position.

“Because if the south loses the war, you’ll be nothing better than a freed slave. You’re not much higher in the world than that right now. If the Yankees take New Orleans, that fancy life of yours’ll come crashin’ down. You’ll be no better than them they sell on the auction block. Up here you’re light enough to pass. But gal, you don’t fool me. I’m no Yankee. I ain’t that dumb.”

Mrs. Hanrahan’s racist commentary provides important context for understanding the social hierarchies of New Orleans under the Confederacy and the importance to Delphine’s safety of passing as white, even while she is outside the South in Southern Illinois. It also demonstrates the Confederate landladies contempt for anyone with Black origins.

“I am a femme de couleur libre, a free woman of color. French blood flows through me and Spanish blood and African blood. It is the African blood they despise. Is it not curious?”

In this passage, Delphine explains her identity and her heritage to Tilly and Dr. Hutchings. Delphine is proud to be a free woman of color and takes pride in of all the blood that flows through her veins, though she recognizes that some people hate the African blood she carries. Delphine’s racial heritage is rich and diverse, and she celebrates that, touching on the theme of pride in identity and heritage.

“‘They never did get married, you know,’ she said, almost offhand. ‘You’re old enough to hear it.’ ‘Who didn’t?’ ‘Delphine and Noah. […] It liked to break Noah’s heart. But Delphine wouldn’t have it. She said her kind didn’t marry white men. And she was passing for white! She said it would betray all her traditions. Said her mother – her maman – would turn over in her grave.’”

This quote demonstrates Delphine’s lifelong commitment to honoring her people and their traditions. Though she loves Noah, she refuses to marry him. Delphine’s pride in her identity and heritage as a free woman of color is deeply engrained in her character and drives all of her decisions. She chooses to continue the tradition of remaining unmarried instead of marrying a white man as a way of honoring her mother and her foremothers.