How we cite our quotes: (Paragraph)
Quote #4
I nursed all the children, but with her, with all the fierce rigidity of first motherhood. (6)
The narrator recalls how she nursed Emily regularly, but this is also a time when Emily's father was still living with them.
Quote #5
She was a miracle to me, but when she was eight months old I had to leave her daytimes with the woman downstairs to whom she was no miracle at all [...] (7)
Good mothering is not an instinctual thing that all women share, as the negligent "woman downstairs" shows.
Quote #6
What was in my face when I looked at her? I loved her. There were all the acts of love. (17)
The narrator's neighbor chastises her for not looking at her daughter with affection, but also for not looking like an affectionate mother. Despite appearances, the narrator points to her own struggles to support her daughter as "acts of love."