“My days at school were all the same, and Fabienne’s life, with her cows and goats, could not be so different from one day to the next. Growing up required patience, but even if we had all the patience in the world, where would that lead us? Some day we would get married. Then we would have to raise children, if we were lucky enough not to end up dying in childbirth, as Joline had.”
Agnes does not see any interesting aspect in their lives that they would put into the book that Fabienne has in mind. She feels that their current life is monotonous. She anticipates that the monotony will continue even after they reach adulthood. However, Fabienne believes that there are interesting things that they could transform into stories. She envisions coming up with a book that would make people think about them.
“The name you should pay attention to in this story is Fabienne. Fabienne is not an orange or a knife or a singer of lullabies, but she can make herself into any of those things. Well, she once could. She is dead now. The news of her death arrived in a letter from my mother, the last of my family still living in Saint Remy, though my mother was not writing particularly to report the death, the birth of her own first great-grandchild.”
Agnes' declaration surmises that Fabienne is the protagonist of her life. Although they live apart as adults, Fabienne is integral to Agnes' coming of age. Her death is a shock that motivates Agnes to write a book about her friend. The most significant detail in the letter Agnes gets from her mother is about Fabienne's passing. Although there is the birth of another kid in Agnes' family, the news of Fabienne's death affects her more.
“In the postscript of the letter, my mother wrote that Fabienne died the previous month--“de la meme Maniere qua sa sour Joline"—in the same manner as her sister. Joline had died in 1946 in childbirth, when she was seventeen. Fabienne died in 1966, at twenty-seven. You would think twenty years would make child-birth less a killer of women, you would think the same calamity should never strike a family twice, but if you think that way you are likely to be called an idiot by someone, as Fabienne used to call me."
For poor women such as Joline and Fabienne, birthing becomes a deadly affair. Clearly, no significant transformations have taken place to guarantee that women will continue surviving after birthing children. Fabienne had been a robust and spirited woman only to be brought down by childbirth. Fabienne's death makes Agnes to long for motherhood because at the time of the death Agnes is married but is yet to deliver a baby.
