The Narrator - An unnamed, approximately forty-year-old woman who struggles to explain the aspects of her daughter Emily’s childhood that have made Emily who she is. The narrator was a young single mother during the lean years of the Great Depression. After her first husband left her, she struggled to work and raise Emily alone. She eventually remarried and had four more children. As she settles into a more stable life, she looks back on the intervening years and challenges she faced as a mother. Her guilt about the lack of attention she gave Emily as she grew up is especially pronounced