Night Watch: A Novel

“He should have known but I told him. I’ll be thirteen at the end of December. Born after you went away. Born in ’61, the year both sides mustered troops. Tall for your age but right puny. Too skinny for a man to take on. I considered it. But you’ll stay with her. Here? This is home. There’s nothing back there. It’s all give away. It’s give away? Are you listening to me? Yes sir, I said, for he liked to be addressed such.”

The fact that Papa does not know how old ConaLee is serves as an early warning that Papa is not who he claims to be. His comment about ConaLee’s appearance obscures the later revelation that Papa has been sexually abusing ConaLee and her mother. His insistence on being called “Papa” or “sir” displays his desire for power and control over the mother and daughter.

“I wondered I could lie so well. A liar was evil. But all stories were lies and I knew so many. I knew what not to say to anyone come by our ridge. We were far away now. How would we ever get back? I pressed my fingernail hard into my palm to stop thinking of it.”

The blurred lines of morality come to the forefront of ConaLee’s mind as she lies out of necessity to secure a place in the asylum. She confronts her own need to lie with the comfort that all the stories she and her mother love are also fiction. Her use of pain to distract herself, though, indicates a broader trauma that is not yet revealed.

“You are Miss Janet now, I told her. Whatever came before—it’s not true here. She nodded. Then she whispered, Here, we are safe. They were four words, barely breathed, but my heart warmed. Yes, Mama!”

The asylum, though potentially a new source of danger for Eliza and ConaLee as they hide their true identities, is still safer than the ridge with Papa. Eliza, silent up to this point, speaks to ConaLee to express her relief at their newfound safety. This early passage shows the closeness of mother and daughter, as well as the hope that ConaLee has for her mother’s recovery, reflecting The Importance of Family.

“He fought alongside men who thought themselves his brothers and did not know him. Here at this forgotten stream, flowing hidden between brush and flowering weeds, he knew himself. Elsewhere he was never one man but two, seen, unseen, his strength doubled, his awareness keen, covert, as though one self fought for the survival of the other. He allowed his mind such thoughts, crouching to anoint his hands with pungent mustard weed crushed in the pale sap bled of broken Queen Anne’s lace.”

The Sharpshooter, or O’Shea, whose real name is never revealed, explores himself in the woods, reflecting on how his identity is split into two. On the one hand, he is a peaceful, family-oriented man, and he misses his wife and unborn child in West Virginia. On the other, he is fierce and violent, willing to fight to protect himself, his name, and his family’s safety.

“Her people were Protestant Irish, poor laborers from starving Ulster two generations past. Indentured servants bonded to immigration debt, then tenant farmers, they died off or gave up, drifted off, until it was only her daddy, a drunken sometime ditchdigger for landowners from the great houses, her mama, a midwife and woods doctor for other poor whites who traded what they could for her help.”

Dearbhla’s upbringing provides insight into the social hierarchy of the South just before the Civil War. Though many think of whiteness as a blanket privilege during this time, the details of Dearbhla’s family being Protestant, Irish, and poor all serve to undercut that privilege. Indentured servants and their children were considered to be just barely preferable to Black enslaved people in the eyes of society, as shown in occupations like “gravedigger” and “woods doctor.”

“Most families, with no menfolk to help farm and hunt, had moved to the towns. But the towns were raided by North and South. Dearbhla and Eliza had reason to stay where they were and avoid the War altogether, only waiting for word or news of the one they’d lost, who’d refused their pleas to stay, abide here, not join up. Eliza was barely with child and the War would surely end soon. It did not.”

During the war, even families located far from the battlefields were in danger of roaming bands of men, reflecting The Societal Impacts of War. No side of the war was safe from raiding, and the mountain ridge provides a haven for Dearbhla and Eliza—both from raids and from retribution for the murder in Virginia. The final line reflects the perspectives of people early in the war, who predicted that the Civil War would be over quickly.

“Why no faces, ConaLee? The child was silent. Maybe it’s best, Eliza said, pausing. So that I can be you and you can be me. And Dearbhla can be us. Flying here to there! Or hiding. Like we practice in the root cellar. And why are you hiding, ConaLee? Strangers. And the War. And if anyone asks you about a War? I don’t know nothing about a War. You don’t know—anything—about a War. With strangers, we keep what we know to ourselves. I don’t say I can read my name. No, you don’t say. Do you say, Mama, that you can read? I might, or I might not.”

At three years old, ConaLee already understands that she and Eliza are hiding on the ridge. Her dolls do not have faces because faces might reveal who they are and lead to trouble. When ConaLee asks Eliza if she tells people that she can read, Eliza’s response aligns with the faceless dolls, showing how information about oneself can be used against them.

“That day, Eliza couldn’t bring herself to leave the knife in the coop, though hiding it where she mostly used it had saved her. For years, she would keep it near to hand at night and wear it on her hip by day, sheathed, on a leather cross-chest strap, until snows closed the mountains and the ridge. She kept the nail, scoured it of rust, sharpened the point to feel of it, to press it along the skin of her upper thighs and draw raised bloodied lines on her traitorous body.”

Eliza’s desire to remain armed and punish herself encompasses the guilt and anger felt by many survivors of sexual assault. She is both anxious that Papa might return, wanting to have the knife on hand, but also ashamed, as though she was at fault for her own abuse. The nail becomes an important symbol of her Trauma and Its Long-Lasting Effects (See: Symbols & Motifs).

“You remember my prattle? She laughed. You are smiling, a little. It’s just as well not to remember trauma, especially as you gain your strength. It may be you will never remember…certain things. They are gone for a reason, perhaps. What reason, he wondered. They had said, ‘soldier,’ and ‘regiment.’ He knew what a soldier was—an image came to mind, a small tin figure, like an illustration from a book.”

When O’Shea wakes up, he remembers Mrs. Gordon talking about her family, but he does not remember the war or his life before it. Subconsciously, O’Shea latched onto Gordon’s stories because family is what matters most to him. Though he does not remember Eliza and ConaLee, they are still present in his mind as a general desire for The Importance of Family and love, which he hears in Gordon’s stories.

“Aloud, he said, I am—a monster. Would you say, Doctor? Dr. O’Shea shook his head. I’m not sure you have as much claim to that term as do those who scarred your chest. This War is—purely monstrous. From my standpoint, your recovery over these weeks is one of few good outcomes. You look—doubtful. Do I? I’m grateful to you, that I manage an expression at all.”

O’Shea’s fear that he is a “monster” comes from both his physical appearance and his latent feeling that he is a violent person. Dr. O’Shea, though he does not know the source of O’Shea’s scars, accurately notes that truly violent men, real monsters, inflicted those wounds on him. O’Shea’s doubt is likely the result of his feeling of survivor’s guilt, rather than that he is not healing well.

“Dearbhla cut the rope with the blade in the coop as Eliza collapsed against her. Why this binding? Dearbhla asked. To keep me here, by the coop, till he return. It’s only a bit of rope, Dearbhla said, coiling it in her pocket. It doesn’t tie you here. And you afraid to cut it yourself. I’ll take it—let him ask me for it. Now come, eat the food I’m making, bathe, rest. He asks, say you woke in your bed and have no thought of how. Or say nothing. Eliza nodded, stricken. I won’t speak…before him.”

Dearbhla finds Eliza bound, but she realizes that Eliza could easily cut her own bindings. Eliza explains how she cannot act against Papa, as he wants her to resist and give him more entertainment. Metaphorically, Dearbhla sees how Eliza is trapped with Papa more because of her lack of efficacy than because she is physically trapped on the ridge.

“Did anyone hurt you on the journey? Dr. Story paused. Or before the journey? I held my breath, afraid she might reply. It seemed to me Papa hurt her every day, not to strike her or any of us, but in his look and touch, in holding us fast as he chose. She stood or sat or lay senseless under him and he seemed to play at rousing her to noises. How would she answer? She looked away then, into the room. I hoped she would speak to him, and convince him of our story.”

ConaLee provides some insight in this passage on how Papa would hurt Eliza. He did not hit her, but he manipulated her, restraining her from leaving. ConaLee most likely does not remember the physical abuse that Eliza and Dearbhla note in other sections of the novel. Most importantly, ConaLee wishes that Eliza could tell Dr. Story the full truth, as he might be able to help with the actual Trauma and Its Long-Lasting Effects that Eliza has experienced.

“You must be Miss Janet…She didn’t answer, but held to my wrist. She looked away then, and closed her eyes. What to say and when? If Dr. Story could help her, or this place, did it matter what truth she told? We could leave, if she got well, and find our way to Dearbhla—Papa was gone, surely, far away. What would he want with us now? He’d given away or sold all we had.”

ConaLee reflects, here, on the reason behind their fake names and histories. Papa told them to use those names, and she questions whether it would matter if they told the truth about who they are. Dr. Story may still be able to help them, but ConaLee does not know that Eliza initially fled Virginia as a fugitive.

“Not to defend their plantations—they had none! They had to run to Virginia to sign up and fight for the very ones that called them ‘Westerners’ and ‘frontiersmen.’ Too ornery to take orders from Federals, who thought them backward, or because their people had come up here from the South. Most counties to the north and east were staunch for the Union, but Weston folk figured Northerners had slighted them most, and they’ve long memories.”

Eira’s scathing perspective on the Confederates from the West reveals the tension surrounding the Civil War and The Societal Impacts of War. Many Southerners joined the Confederate cause out of a sense of loyalty to their state or out of spite for the North. These men were disliked by both the South and North, and they chose the South more out of obligation than legitimate investment in the Southern “cause.”

“What I’d forgot came to me like pictures on a spool, and my palm so small the mirror filled my hand. I’d tease the sun’s flare with my plaything, turn the round glass here and there, but my mother was suddenly grabbing me up, running to the back through the yard, squeezing my breath out of me. […] She lowered me in feet first, holding to my wrists, and let go. The dark slammed shut. Where are you, Nurse Connolly? asked Eira Blevins.”

ConaLee’s mirror brings back the memory of Papa’s first intrusion on the ridge, filtering through the years of ConaLee and Eliza suppressing or avoiding ConaLee’s trauma. When Eira asks where ConaLee is, it reflects how unresolved trauma can resurface at any time or place, dragging the individual back into the memory against their will.

“On Mrs. Kasinski? And Mrs. Kasinski told you so? She’s not such a lunatic, then. No, Mama said. Ruth does what she must. Like you did, Mama? Could you talk, but you didn’t, for fear of Papa? I don’t know. I had…no other hope, to keep him from me, she said. She took both my hands in hers and pulled me toward her. I’m sorry, ConaLee…Oh, Mama—just get better. You are getting better.”

Eliza reveals that Ruth is only pretending to be mentally ill, much as Eliza crafted her catatonic appearance to avoid the full force of Papa’s assaults. Eliza apologizes to ConaLee because she knows that she effectively abandoned her daughter to protect herself, but ConaLee only wants Eliza to recover. Their enduring concern for one another reflects The Importance of Family.

“I did not like to upset Mama but I was afraid and thought on it every day. Papa strode into the Women’s Ward in my nightmares and flung open Mama’s door, or came into my rooms, the ones I shared now with other nurses above the wards, and grabbed me up, confusing me with her, trapping my face and arms in my nightgown. I woke in a wet bed and ran with my sheets to the small lavatory. Soaking the urine smell out in the half tub, washing, wringing, I felt as twisted.”

ConaLee’s anxiety comes from the unresolved and unconfronted Trauma and Its Long-Lasting Effects from Papa’s abuse. Eliza is not afraid, but ConaLee suffers nightmares and wetting the bed, marking the severity of her fear. However, at this point, ConaLee still thinks that Eliza was the only person Papa abused, noting how Papa “confuses” Eliza and ConaLee in her nightmare.

“Four years hence, Miss Janet is his patient. Restored under his care, she might be more. His uncle Kirkbride’s successful remarriage is lasting evidence that moral treatment, safety, rest, might heal even those whose traumas once rendered them silent. Gratitude for one’s survival, Story believes, lasts longer even than love.”

Dr. Story imagines himself marrying Eliza after she recovers from her trauma. Much like his uncle, Story feels that there is merit in helping a patient to the extent that they are able to form this kind of relationship. However, there is an underlying issue in the power dynamic here, as Story acknowledges how “gratitude” might play a role in Eliza’s willingness to marry him.

“The mist was smoke, rising, pale as souls until fire streaked the skies red. The sense that he’d been here and could never leave came upon him like a sudden darkness, blindingly lit. He stepped back but felt her clasp his shoulders with both hands and move with him. She trod upon his feet to reach up, close any distance, press her wet face against his throat. He knew the smell of her. How?”

Eliza reminds O’Shea of the battle in which he was injured, which he has not remembered since waking up. He remembers her smell as well, which brings his memory back even before the war. Eliza’s presence is essentially the key to O’Shea’s amnesia, bringing back both good and bad memories.

“I followed her into the roar and saw Mama, running by a dark river that opened deep as a gash. It’s a deep hole, too deep for Mama to reach in. […] I was blind and felt her lay me down, slide me forward, hang me over in the rain and thunder. Slops are in the ditch. I reached into the wet but the river stood up and branched off like a tree of burning stars, too big to fall because the Night Watch, O’Shea, held it on his shoulders. Dizzy, I sank in sparks of lights, as though Papa must be near again. Mama’s pages were fires that flew up around me.”

The dream ConaLee has during her blackout represents her latent understanding that O’Shea is her father. ConaLee is both remembering the day Papa first came to the ridge and conflating that day with the abuse she faced at Papa’s hands later. O’Shea carries the tree of burning stars because he is supposed to protect Eliza and ConaLee, which he will do when Papa returns.

“Oh I were a beauty Pet, ye may not believe it—from my ninth year on evry man I saw came after me, blood relations worse than any. An me too small to stop them flingin me about. Bigger I got the farther away they stayed. Oh I learned to fight Pet, so ye can skate an feather about—none on this place dares backtalk Hexum.”

Hexum’s story repeats the experiences of Dearbhla, Eliza, and ConaLee, implying that Hexum was sexually assaulted as a child, even by people within her own family. Like Eliza’s silence, ConaLee’s blackouts, and Dearbhla’s “conjuring,” Hexum developed a defense mechanism: strength. By fighting back, Hexum protected herself, and she can now protect others, like Weed.

“She’d removed the hard cone strapped to his head, kissing and touching as though to change what is, for he does not remember, remembers nothing, though felt at last within himself the miracle of a truth known and believed. And now this maniac, birthed in the War and the lost past, is here among them, for the past is the present unrecognized.”

O’Shea’s life before and during the war rush back to him as Papa brandishes the pistol. He notes how Eliza removed the eye patch (See: Symbols & Motifs), symbolically removing O’Shea’s traumas, but Papa, “birthed in the war,” brings that trauma back to the present. The final line, here, displays the futility of separating the past and present as they run into one another.

“A blank pulsing thud of heartbeat is the only key he possesses, and it fits no lock. But he’s intensely relieved. He thinks of a kite, struggling along the ground, suddenly catching the wind, with the string let out very quickly. He can hear the whistle of air and feel a sensation of buoyancy, as though he gains height over raucous green hills that resound with pleas for mercy.”

O’Shea’s initial motivation for joining the war was to fight for his own freedom. Though he cannot remember that motivation in this passage, he feels the opportunity before him. Using the kite as a metaphor, O’Shea feels his own freedom building in his pursuit of a new life.