" She thought of all the women she knew, who'd been given nothing, who'd been scorned and misjudged, who'd had to fight for every scrap. They were her many mothers: Evangeline, who gave her life, and Hazel, who saved it; Olive and Maeve, who fed and nurtured her; even Dr. Garret. Each of them lived inside her and always would. They were the rings of the tree that Hazel was always going on about, the shells on her thread. Ruby titled her head at Cecil. He went inside the door. And she was on her way. "
― Christina Baker Kline , The Exiles