Jacob Have I Loved

The Captain stays with the Bradshaws for three days, during which Louise avoids looking him in the eye. However, she continues to stare at his hands. Though she fears that everyone can tell how she feels, the Captain treats her the same as always. Grandma notices her obsession and mocks her relentlessly. Amused, Caroline tries to tell their mother about this but Louise yells at her. Again, Louise thinks of the Pond’s lotion ad, with the image of a pair of beautiful white hands with manicured nails, and the man’s hands placing an engagement ring on her finger. Her own hands, Louise notices, have broken nails, ragged cuticles, and cracked skin. On the third day, the Captain decides that he can stay in Trudy’s empty house while she is still in the hospital, rather than continue living with the Bradshaws. He will be able to repair the house so that it is ready when Trudy returns.

The summer ends, and school reopens. Though Louise is bored, she is grateful for the distraction that school provides from her feelings for the Captain. Louise becomes obsessed with observing all the hands in the classroom, convinced that they are a better indicator of a person’s character than their eyes. She remarks that “if all you were shown of Caroline’s body were her hands, you know at once that she was an artistic person” (147). Meanwhile, Call’s hands indicate that he is a “good-hearted but second-rate person” (147). Feeling that the state of her hands somehow dictates her fate, Louise decides to change by buying lotion, emery boards, and nail polish, hiding them away from her sister’s snooping.

One day, Louise finds Caroline using her hand lotion. When she objects, Caroline calls her selfish, and Louise screams, “Take it! Take everything I own!” (148) and throws the bottle against a wall, shattering it. Caroline stares at her in shock, and Louise runs from the house crying.

Caroline does not tell anyone about the hand lotion incident, but Louise believes that she was behaving erratically. She compares herself to Trudy Braxton, and decides that, in the best-case scenario, people will leave her alone to live out her life on the island in solitude.

Trudy’s impending return means that the Captain will soon be unhoused again. Truitt considers inviting the Captain to stay with them, but Grandma objects, claiming that the Captain would climb into her bed at night. Louise’s parents are horrified by this outburst, while Caroline is only amused.

Caroline suggests to Louise that the Captain should marry Trudy in a marriage of convenience. He will have a place to live, and she will have someone to care for her following her stroke. Louise is disgusted at the thought and threatens to kill Caroline if she mentions the idea to the Captain. Caroline brushes off the threat and takes Louise and Call to visit the Captain. The Captain seems intrigued, if not immediately convinced. He fears that people would accuse him of marrying Trudy for her money, but Caroline insists that no one else knows she has any money. The next day, he takes the ferry to the mainland to visit Trudy. A few days later, they return, and the Captain announces that they have married. Louise feels her devastation as a physical sensation.

Following the Captain’s marriage, Louise distances herself from the others. She visits the Captain and Trudy only once after their marriage, when she, Call, and Caroline are invited to dinner. When Caroline calls her “Wheeze,” Louise shouts at her. She expects everyone to laugh at her, but the Captain kindly asks her what is wrong. She cannot handle his gentleness and flees from the house and does not return again.

Caroline and Call, on the other hand, visit them nearly every day. Caroline sings for Trudy often. In December, on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Trudy suffers another stroke and dies soon after. At the funeral, Louise is struck for the first time by how old the Captain looks.

Grandma, growing more bitter and paranoid by the day, claims that the Captain killed Trudy with poison, and then accuses Louise of helping him. Caroline yells at her to shut up. That night, Caroline confides to Louise that she needs to get away from the island before the old woman “runs [her] nuts” (171). Louise bitterly wonders what Grandma could possibly do to Caroline, when it is Louise she is so intent on tormenting.

In February 1943, Call drops out of school to work for Truitt and support his family. Louise is jealous of him, as she wants to work with her father, and he will not allow it. The work matures Call quickly, and he soon grows tall, lean, and attractive. Louise notices that Caroline makes a fuss over him every Sunday.

One day, the Captain recalls how much Trudy loved Caroline’s singing and laments that she can no longer afford her singing lessons since the storm. Louise offhandedly remarks that the state should pay for island kids to go to a school on the mainland. She is thinking about herself, but the Captain believes she is referring to Caroline.

Days later, the Captain announces that is going to use the money Trudy had saved to pay for Caroline to go to a boarding school in Baltimore and continue studying music. Caroline and Susan are amazed and grateful. Louise is stunned and hurt, feeling that the Captain has, like everyone else, chosen Caroline over her. Only Grandma appears to perceive Louise’s disappointment. As Louise goes into the kitchen to make tea, Grandma whispers behind her: “Romans nine thirteen [...] ‘As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated’” (178).

Louise retreats to her bedroom until dinnertime. As she is trying to fall asleep later that night, she reflects on the biblical story of Jacob and Esau, trying to remember which of his parents uttered those words. When she looks up the passage, she realizes that the speaker is God, and that the passage makes clear that the hatred is arbitrary. Identifying with Esau, Louise concludes that God himself must hate her as well.

Susan, feeling guilty about the opportunity Caroline has received, offers to borrow some money to send Louise to a different, less expensive boarding school. Though it is the same school Louise herself had once dreamed of escaping to, she now only feels insulted, believing that her mother is trying to get rid of her. She furiously refuses the offer. Two weeks later, Caroline leaves for Baltimore. That summer, Call joins the Navy.

Louise finally joins her father on the crabbing boat. Her parents want her to stay in school, but Truitt is desperate for help, so they do not object. Louise stops going to church and praying. Grandma tells her she will be doomed to eternal damnation, but Louise no longer cares. The year goes by, and Louise works harder and harder to help her father. To her surprise, Louise discovers that her father sings on his boat. He admits that in oyster season “he would serenade the oysters of Chesapeake Bay with the hymns the brothers Wesley had written to bring sinners to repentance and praise” (188).

When the crabbing and oyster seasons end, Susan tries to convince Louise to go back to school, but she refuses. She studies at home with her mother and takes math lessons with the Captain. During those lessons, the Captain shares the letters he receives from Call. In April 1944, the crabbing season picks up again and Louise returns to helping her father, studying late at night. She learns about the success of D-Day from her mother but remains worried about the war in the Pacific where Call is stationed.