How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Page)
Quote #4
"Jesus Marie Joseph. Every time I even think of that, the nightmares get worse. It bites at the inside of my stomach like a leech. Last night after I talked to Marc about letting it go, I felt the skin getting tight on my belly and for a whole minute I couldn't breathe. I had to lie down and say I had changed my mind before I could breathe normally." (29.191)
Martine is truly suffering—both mentally and physically—from her new pregnancy. She can't help connecting her rape/rapist with the child she is now carrying, even though the circumstances of its conception are completely different. The fact that she feels out of control, that the baby is taking over her body, sparks a new and intense fear that this little intruder is trying to kill her.
Quote #5
"I am trying to keep one step ahead of a mental hospital. They would probably put me away, thinking that I might hurt both myself and this child." (29.191)
It's hard to know if Martine is saying the first bit of this in jest, but we think she's probably pretty serious. She understands that her mental stability is questionable and she knows that the pregnancy is making things worse. Sadly, she hits the nail right on the head: she is capable of hurting herself and the baby, and she does need intervention to keep that from happening. And yet, she doesn't want that kind of intervention, because it will mean once again that her body isn't fully under her own control.
Quote #6
I knew the intensity of her nightmares. I had seen her curled up in a ball in the middle of the night, sweating and shaking as she hollered for the images of the past to leave her alone. Sometimes the fright woke her up, but most of the time, I had to shake her awake before she bit her finger off, ripped her nightgown, or threw herself out of a window. (29.193)
Sophie recalls the intensity of Martine's nightmares, which are far worse than we really understood before this point. These nightly "hauntings" cause suffering from which Martine can never free herself and over which she has very little control. Sophie feels both sympathy for her mother and guilt that she isn't still around to comfort her mother, even though she knows that the situation wasn't a healthy one for her, either.