Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Future Home of the Living God, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Isolation vs. Interconnectedness with Family
Non-Belonging and Forging Individual Identity
Growth and Age as Nonlinear
Summary
Analysis
The narrator walks down the hallway of a hospital in Minneapolis, en route to her ultrasound appointment. She reflects that she’ll “be a good mother even though [she’s] fucked up everything so far.” Addressing her unborn baby, she explains that she’s been doing a lot of research about pregnancy. The narrator says she knows her baby is “fine” and doesn’t have any major birth defects or genetic disorders.
Here, the narrator reveals that she is more oriented towards the future than the past. She addresses her narration to an unborn baby, which reveals that she is considering the events of the present as they relate to the future and not the past. Her belief that she will be a good mother in spite of having made a wide variety of mistakes in her life suggests that she is perhaps not interested in engaging with her past, believing she can build a solid future without grappling with those past mistakes.
Themes
A nurse, who is “probably Vietnamese” but has a distinctive Minnesota accent, asks the narrator several questions about any possible inherited conditions in her family. The narrator responds that she’s adopted, and that she received a letter from her biological mother about a year ago. Even though she tells the nurse that she keeps in touch with her mother, she thinks privately that she never answered the letter. The nurse tells the narrator to ask her mother about any genetic conditions that run in the family, noting that doing so could be really beneficial for her baby.
In this passage, the narrator reveals a deeper level of aversion to her past. As she thinks to herself that she has never answered the letter from her mother, she demonstrates not just a disregard for her past, but an active desire to ignore her family of origin. However, the nurse’s implication that she may need to contact her birth mother sets the precedent for the narrator to return to investigate aspects of her past.
Themes
The nurse compliments the narrator, Cedar Hawk Songmaker, on her name, asking if she got the name from her tribe. Used to this question, Cedar explains that Songmaker is a British last name, adding, “My Indian name is Mary Potts.” Cedar reflects on her adoption: she was taken away from her biological mother “because of our mutual addiction to a substance she loved more than me.” Cedar was then adopted and renamed by a liberal couple from Minneapolis, who, she adds, she always “disappoint[s].” Cedar thinks back to receiving the letter from her birth mother—how she had read the letter and then crumpled it up, but ultimately kept it.
The information about Cedar’s family in this passage is key to the story. Here, readers learn that Cedar’s birth mother is indigenous, which means that her lack of connection to her birth family also renders her disconnected from parts of her culture and ethnicity. The irony that Cedar’s “Indian name,” is Mary Potts, while the name Cedar was given to her by Minnesota liberals, reveals a confused mixture of cultures and identities in Cedar’s life. Finally, Cedar reveals her distance from her adoptive parents as well as her birth mother, revealing to readers the full extent of her isolation from both her family and her past.
Themes
Cedar promises the nurse that she will contact her birth mother, but the question has clearly left her unsettled. She observes that other women haven’t come alone to their ultrasounds, and begins to reflect on how the baby really isn’t arriving in the easiest of circumstances—all of her friends are “dead or in jail,” she is on the brink of losing her job, and she doesn’t know the name of the baby’s father, who she only knew for one night.
Indeed, the nurse’s comments about contacting her birth mother trigger a sense of loneliness in Cedar. Her observations that all of the other women are accompanied by a loved one implies a sadness that she doesn’t have anyone to come with her, which again creates an opening for her reconnection with her past and her family. The fact that Cedar’s friends are all “dead or in jail,” and the revelation that she is about to lose her job, suggest that in spite being raised by well-to-do “Minnesota liberals,” Cedar might engage in illegal activity and may not be much better off than she would have been with her birth family.
Themes
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The doctor then arrives, along with the technician, and begins performing the ultrasound. Cedar is both in awe and afraid of the image she sees on the screen. At one point, overwhelmed, she almost asks the technician to stop, but instead asks the doctor about the baby’s gender. No one responds. She becomes fascinated by the image of the heart, which makes her feel as though the room has “yawned open,” that “one room in the hospital had suddenly opened out into the universe.”
Cedar’s perception here that the room “yawns open […] out into the universe” symbolizes an ending to her isolation. The phrasing of this quote reflects a sense of interconnectedness—although Cedar is physically alone in this moment, the results of the ultrasound will force her to confront the wider “universe” of her family and her past.
Themes
Cedar asks again whether she has a boy or a girl, and again, no one responds. Stopping on an image of the baby’s brain, which looks like “an icy swirl of motion held in a perfect circle of white ash,” the doctor and technician look worried. Even Cedar herself knows that something isn’t quite right. The doctor tells her they don’t know the gender of the baby and informs Cedar that she’ll have to get in touch with her birth mother—there might be something wrong with the baby.
Cedar’s insistence on knowing the gender of her baby further illustrates how oriented she is towards the future. In this moment, however, she must change this mindset and accept that she needs to contact her birth mother, thereby facing her past. Consequently, in this passage, Cedar is unable to move towards the future without confronting her past.
Themes
Rattled by the scary news, Cedar leaves the doctor’s office “wanting in the very worst way to get drunk, pop a couple of Atvians, chill.” She is so anxious that she vomits as soon as she gets in the car. She feels like she is a “child again, caught in giant trouble” and drives over to the home of her adoptive parents, Alan and Sera Songmaker, to get the letter that her birth mother sent her a year ago. Cedar has fond memories of her adoptive parents, although she also thinks they’re somewhat silly. Minnesota liberals who inherited robber baron wealth, Sera and Alan donated all of their inheritance to defunct leftist causes, but still raised Cedar with plenty of faux-indigenous rituals that she enjoyed as a kid. She resolves to tell Alan and Sera about her pregnancy as soon as she walks in the door, but they are not home.
Here, Cedar’s reaction to the news—wanting to get drunk and casually take prescription medicine to “chill”—imply that she has abused substances, a habit she may have inherited from her birth mother in spite of never having met her. Additionally, her feeling that she is a “child again” highlights the fact that she is on the precipice of growth, in some ways stuck between ages. Even though she is about to be a mother herself, the story centers around her relationship with her parents, adoptive and biological, thus figuring her more like a child than an adult. Finally, her thoughts about the rituals Sera and Alan performed reveal that their engagement with indigenous culture was superficial, and hasn’t provided her with a sense of family or cultural connection that she may have enjoyed had she been raised by her birth mother.
Themes
In her own room, Cedar finds and briefly rereads the letter. In it, her birth mother mentions wanting to be in touch with her, hoping to hear back, and the fact that she and her other daughter own the Superpumper on the reservation. After briefly skimming the letter, she dials the number written. Stammering, Cedar introduces herself as Mary Potts, originally, and asks if the person on the other end is Mary Potts Senior. But the speaker reveals herself to be Cedar’s younger half-sister, who screams at her mother that “some insane bitch” is on the phone claiming to be part of the family. Cedar hears a ruckus on the other end of the line—her younger sister screaming, a door slamming, and an older voice that asks who it is, to which a third woman’s voice replies “Nobody!”
That Cedar’s birth mother is proud to own the Superpumper on the reservation is the first hint of her working-class background, and consequently, the great class difference between Cedar’s adoptive and birth family.
Themes
Finally, Cedar has her birth mother on the line. The older voice in the background asks again who is on the line, and her birth mother again replies that it is nobody. Hearing this, Cedar feels an “awful prickling in [her] throat, the reaction to the second time she said nobody.” Cedar’s birth mother introduces herself as Mary Potts Almost Senior, or “Sweetie.” Hearing each other’s voice is a shock for both mother and daughter, but the conversation still becomes tense as Cedar asks for directions to Mary Potts Almost Senior’s home, saying “Might I ask for directions to your house?” To this, Mary Potts Almost Senior replies, “You said you might ask. You askin’? Cedar finds her mother’s coy attitude to be “petty manipulation,” but decides she can handle it and starts on her way.
Cedar’s sadness at her birth mother referring to her as “nobody” demonstrates that although she might have told herself she was okay with being isolated from her family, there is a part of her that wants to be recognized by and connected with her birth mother. The abandonment she feels at having been given up for adoption is first revealed in this moment. The tension that occurs when Cedar asks for Mary Potts Almost Senior’s address reveals both of their defensiveness; both want to connect with the other but feel uncomfortable admitting this with vulnerability and openness. Finally, in going by Mary Potts Almost Senior, Cedar’s birth mother also demonstrates a sort of confusion with regards to age, similar to Cedar’s.
Themes
Before Cedar can leave the house, her “childhood training takes over” and she decides to leave Alan and Sera a note. She drives to her birth mother’s house in an old but beloved Chevy that “will not die.” As she drives along the highway on the way to her “Potts reservation home,” Cedar feels that she is “moving forward and backward at the same time.” She passes many things along the roadside, saying that it “comforts [her] to pass things too swiftly to absorb.” Among the many things she sees are several evangelical billboards that read “ENDTIME AT LAST!” and “GET READY TO RAPTURE” and “FUTURE HOME OF THE LIVING GOD.” These billboards, in spite of their bold declarations, are in the middle of empty, barren fields on the side of the highway.
Again, the implication that Cedar still has thoughts and behaviors that bring her back to her childhood emphasizes that growth in this story is nonlinear. Everything she observes on her way to the reservation highlights the mixing of the past and the future. For instance, the fact that her car “will not die” reveals a desire for something in the past to end to make room for the future—in other words, Cedar wants the car to die in order to get a new one, but it refuses. Similarly, the billboards reflect an eagerness for a future event—the rapture—that is nowhere in sight. Cedar’s sense that she is moving “backwards and forwards at the same time” perfectly captures the confusion of time in this passage. She is moving towards her past in order to make room for a better future.
Themes
When Cedar arrives at the reservation where Mary Potts Almost Senior lives, she is feeling more clear-headed. She observes the view with a calm sense of admiration and curiosity, and sees the Superpumper that the members of her family own. Upon seeing her mother for the first time, she is surprised by her beauty. Still, the first encounter between mother and daughter is awkward. Cedar gets out of the car and doesn’t know whether to hug her mother, who has teared up. Not knowing what to say, Cedar compliments Mary’s earrings. However, the tender moment ends when Mary Potts Almost Senior comments that they look alike, and Cedar snaps that they don’t.
In this passage, the defensiveness and resentment that exist between mother and daughter coexist with longing and sense of loss. Cedar’s admiration for her mother’s beauty reflects her repressed love and desire for connection. However, her negative, knee-jerk reaction to being told that they look alike demonstrates that she still feels resistant to having a real connection to her family, in spite of the simultaneous longing that she clearly feels.
Themes
Once inside, Mary Potts Almost Senior yells to someone in the other room that Cedar “turned out nice." She is talking to Mary Potts the Very Senior, Cedar’s grandmother, who is a hundred and a half years old. The three sit down in the living room, and Cedar immediately asks her birth mother whether there are genetic diseases in the family and why she gave her up.
The introduction of Mary Potts the Very Senior contributes to a sense of confusion with regards to age in the story. Like her daughter, Mary Potts Almost Senior is in some ways stuck between childhood and adulthood—she is “Almost Senior” and yet lives with her mother, who is truly the elder of the family.
Themes
Mary Potts Almost Senior first tries to explain herself, saying it wasn’t because she was “that young,” and eventually admitting that she struggled with drug and sex addiction and didn’t feel able to take care of a child. She tears up as she speaks, and says she felt “stupid, just plain stupid” for having given Cedar up. She also admits that she couldn’t bear hearing news about Cedar, and so after two years asked Alan and Sera to stop sending photos. She tells Cedar that “not one day” went by that she didn’t think of her. Although Cedar is thinking about how much she wanted her mother growing up, she replies, “Well, you thought of me more than I thought of you.”
Here, Mary Potts Almost Senior’s vulnerable reflection about the grief she’s felt about giving her Cedar reveals that she, like Cedar, tried to distance herself from family and her past. It was too painful for her to receive news about Cedar, so she chose not to, demonstrating a similar style of thinking to her daughter, who also chose to be isolated from her birth mother because it was painful, and from her adoptive parents presumably because she disappoints them. However, Mary Potts Almost Senior’s final decision to reach out and connect with her daughter, no matter how difficult or painful the encounter, illustrates the value and inevitability of family connections.
Themes
Before Mary Potts Almost Senior can respond to the question about genetic diseases, her younger daughter arrives. When Cedar learns that her sister’s name is Little Mary, she asks her mother if she “has no originality,” and feels that she sounds just like her adoptive father, Alan. Cedar is both horrified and impressed by her younger sister’s princess-meets-Goth aesthetic, and she also immediately notices that Little Mary is under the influence. When Cedar sees this, she begins to feel nostalgic for her adoptive parents, and is grateful she was raised by them rather than growing up in this family. She says to Mary Potts Almost Senior, “Just looking at Little Mary, I can tell what a good mother you would have been.”
In many ways, Little Mary serves as a foil for Cedar. Cedar sees her younger sister as what she could have been had she been raised in that family. Although earlier in the story Cedar implies that she engages with illegal activity, which in some ways connects her with her birth mother, Little Mary represents the extent to which Cedar could have been “messed up” if she’d been raised in that house. This triggers Cedar to feel nostalgic for her birth family, which opens up the possibility for her to reconnect with them as well as her birth family. She realizes that she needs them.
Themes
Little Mary is hostile towards her older sister, addressing her as “nobody,” and sits down silently to watch TV. Mary Potts Almost Senior, clearly feeling defensive after Cedar’s sarcastic comment, tells Cedar that she might not be the best mom in the world, but that 16-year-old Little Mary is doing well and has no drug habit. Mary Potts Almost Senior then leaves to make a phone call, leaving Cedar alone with her sister and grandmother.
When Mary Potts Almost Senior says she believes her younger daughter does not use drugs, she reveals a naivete that might render her a worse mother than Cedar had thought. Because Cedar instantly perceives Little Mary’s drug use and their mother doesn’t, Cedar will be able to help Little Mary in ways that Mary Potts Almost Senior simply can’t due to her inability or unwillingness to recognize the truth.
Themes
Little Mary ignores Cedar, but Cedar observes her younger sister as she watches TV. She notes that Little Mary smells like “something going rotten” and glances at the girl’s room, which is a “stupefying dump.” Cedar than draws her attention to her grandmother, who has fallen asleep at the table. Cedar marvels at her old age, observing that she has never seen anyone that old. When Mary Potts the Very Senior wakes up, she and her granddaughter laugh and talk together. Mary Potts the Very Senior reveals to her that women in the family have many miscarriages, saying “we lose some.” When Cedar asks what specifically she means, her grandmother falls into a deep sleep again. Cedar then puts her grandmother to bed, marveling at her old age as she does so.
In this passage, Cedar’s aversion towards Little Mary is juxtaposed with her admiration for Mary Potts the Very Senior. Little Mary represents in some ways everything that is “wrong” with her birth family, but Cedar finds much to appreciate about her grandmother. While the arrival of Little Mary made Cedar nostalgic for her adoptive parents, her newfound appreciation for Mary Potts the Very Senior demonstrates her desire to connect with her birth family beyond the simple obligation to learn about genetic disease in the family.
Themes
Cedar then returns to the living room and tries to speak to Little Mary. Cedar is still marveling over her younger sister’s appearance, which she describes as “creepy and cute.” Little Mary is hostile towards Cedar, calling her a “slut” for being pregnant. Cedar responds with maturity and measure to her little sister’s attacks, but still feels hurt by them. The tables turn, though, when Cedar reveals that she knows that Little Mary uses meth. At this, her younger sister begins to cry, begging her not to tell her mother. Cedar responds saying that she thinks they already know, since they live with her and can “smell her room.”
The discussion between Little Mary and Cedar represents an important turning point in the story. Little Mary was the member of Cedar’s birth family least willing or able to accept that Cedar even existed. However, over the course of this conversation, Little Mary reveals that she may need Cedar in a way—Cedar is an adult figure who sees Little Mary’s problem and, because she knows what’s wrong, is able to help her. In this moment, readers realize that it’s not just Cedar that needs her birth family; they need her, as well.
Themes
Little Mary then asks Cedar to help her clean her filthy room, in a tone of voice much more modest and shyer than before. Cedar thinks to herself that she would “almost be charmed” if the room itself weren’t so disgusting. The room is “knee-deep” in clothes on the floor, and smells like “rank socks, dried blood, spoiled cheese, girl sweat and Secret.” After looking around, Cedar refuses to help clean up because the space is too messy. She comments to Little Mary that it is “her mother’s job” to make her clean up. Cedar thinks to herself that the state of her sister’s room is due to an inherited mental instability, and again begins to worry about her baby. She then goes back into the living room and prepares to leave.
In asking for help clearing her room, Little Mary is also opening the door to building a relationship with her sister, further demonstrating the fact that Cedar’s family needs her. Cedar’s comment that it is Mary Potts Almost Senior’s job to make Little Mary clean up highlights her mother’s failure as a parent, and the possibility for Cedar to compensate for her blind spots. However, the mess in Little Mary’s room symbolizes the difficult path ahead if Cedar is to accept the invitation to build a relationship with her family. The mess represents the complications of family dynamics, and the work necessary to unravel and understand them.
Themes
However, just as Cedar is leaving a note to Mary Potts Almost Senior, she sees a car pulling up that looks like Alan’s old Volvo, and wonders if her adoptive parents had known that she would need them, or if Mary Potts Almost Senior had called them. Indeed, Alan and Sera pull up in the driveway. Imagining the thought of them being with her birth mother overwhelms Cedar, and she feels dizzy, as if she’s “in the middle of some sort of vertex.” To avoid confronting her birth mother and adoptive parents all together, Cedar retreats back into Little Mary’s room, walking backwards through the living room, “somehow, by subterranean memory, not bumping into anything.”
Cedar’s negative reaction to seeing her adoptive parents reflects her realization that remaining isolated from family is impossible, no matter how much she might wish to keep her distance. Her feeling that she is in the middle of some sort of “vortex” creates a similar image to the room “yawning open” in the hospital at the beginning of the story. This is a moment where Cedar recognizes the inevitability of interconnection and codependence of family. The fact that she tries to escape both sets of her parents by backing into her younger sister’s room is further evidence for the fact that family is inescapable.
Themes
When Cedar enters the room, Little Mary assumes that her older sister has resolved to help her. She sits crying on a large pile of clothing that Cedar assumes is her bed, and says “You changed your mind? Oh, wow! I know it’s a lot to ask.” Cedar reaches below her to grab one of the garbage bags she assumes Mary Potts Almost Senior had left in the room as a hint, and in doing so commits to helping clean up.
Cedar’s willingness to help clean up the mess reflects a change in attitude on her part. Now that she realizes that engaging with her family is unavoidable, she resolves to do the work necessary to build the relationships literally, by helping her sister clean up, and also figuratively, as she will presumably put similar effort into building and maintain the relationships.
Themes
As the two sisters are sorting through the huge piles of clothing on the floor, Little Mary and Cedar begin to chat. Little Mary tells her older sister that her style is called “Gothlolita.” Surprised, Cedar asks if Little Mary has read the book by Nabokov, but her little sister reveals that she found the term “Gothlolita” online. As Cedar sorts through the piles and piles of black clothing, her sister looks at her with awe and gratitude. In the distance, Cedar hears the sound of her Mary Potts Almost Senior, Alan, and Sera having drinks in the kitchen.
Cedar and Little Mary having a respectful conversation is symbolically parallel to their cleaning up the mess together: they’re putting in the work to get to know one another. Although Little Mary reveals, in not knowing about the book Lolita, the extent to which her class background makes her different from her sister, Cedar’s admiration for her style reflects a respect for this difference.
Themes
The two sisters are making progress on clearing away the mess when Little Mary asks Cedar what she’ll name her unborn child if it’s a girl. Cedar tells her little sister that there might be something wrong with the baby that she’s carrying, and Little Mary reveals that Mary Potts Almost Senior lost two babies after having Cedar but before giving birth to Little Mary—and that Mary Potts Almost Senior thought it was “punishment for giving [Cedar] up.” Cedar asks her younger sister if there was a name for the condition that ran in the family that caused these miscarriages, and her sister merely replies that “it had thirteen in it,” adding that Mary Potts Almost Senior named her not after herself, but after Cedar.
In this passage, Little Mary reveals the extent to which her mother grieved having lost Cedar. That Little Mary is named after Cedar and not their mother illustrates that Cedar really did have a place in that family, even though at the beginning of the story she may have doubted it. Additionally, the fact that miscarriages run in the family presents further motive for Cedar to become close to her birth family—if the same thing happens to her, she may have to lean on them for emotional support.
Themes
Following that thought, Little Mary says, “Hey! You’re not going to name your baby Mary, are you?” In response, Cedar reads the label off Little Mary’s lingerie, and says, “Victoria.” Little Mary says the name is beautiful and wraps Cedar up into a hug. Cedar then begins to cry, not with “pity for [her]self” but at feeling overwhelmed at the sense of having “tampered with and entered some huge place.” But, holding her sister, she feels that she is not alone as she waits for the answers she needs.
By choosing the name based on something written on Little Mary’s underwear, Cedar demonstrates a willingness to engage with family. This choice epitomizes the lesson Cedar has learned over the course of the story: to integrate an understanding of her past into the construction of her future. Additionally, the choice of the name “Victoria” suggests that what Cedar desires for her baby is not just a continuation of family lineage, but an ability to overcome the obstacles her family has faced. The story ending with the two sisters in an embrace represents the union of Cedar with her family. No matter what unknown obstacles that they will face in the future, they seem poised to face them together.
Themes
