Emmy’s Mermaid Imagery
“Mermaids never drown but Emmy was a woman with a secret.”
Chapter Two, The Heartless Ranch Is Haunted
About the character Emmy Donahue:
Emmy Donahue is in many ways the stereotypical millennial woman. I am myself a millennial woman and I often find that we as a generation have so much in common. That makes me laugh. So the character Emmy came about through that observation and humor.
Emmy is the heart and center of the story and also the perspective that we as the reader are closest to. She feels the most. Still, she can be the hardest character to gain clarity about, reflecting our relationships with ourselves.
She moves very slowly and also sometimes impulsively and in ways that change everything. She refuses to hurry.
Those that knew Emmy best knew that she made something of a hobby out of crying. She cried in the beautiful mornings. She cried over cups of coffee and alone in her little car. She cried during happy times with loved ones and sitting in the sunshine with her plants and on nostalgic Christmas afternoons.”
“When the persistent internal separation threatened to exhaust her Emmy imagined mermaids. Mother of pearl and moonstone, turquoise and coral, sand on wet skin, the colors and textures always lifted her spirits. Mermaids were unrestrained, irreverent- uninterested in redemption. They plunged the depths of the ocean and never drowned in their own tears.”
“People accept that mermaids do what they do because mermaids pull men down to their deaths if it suits them. Thinking about mermaids always cheered Emmy up.”
“The visuals and textiles from the Emmy character’s life are, for me, some of the most fun. The Y2K era was comparably such an exuberant time in the world of color and texture and pattern. It’s easy for me to start there, and to sort of feel it all, through that Y2K influenced lens that is how Emmy sees her world. Emmy is a lot of fun that way.”
-Bunny Hammond
Emmy inherited the Heartless Ranch in Nebraska years ago, when her grandfather passed away. Her mom insisted that she sell the ranch, because it was dangerous, but Emmy did not. Now she will leave her boyfriend Matt, who is planning a wedding, and set out for Nebraska to live in the abandoned house that she owns there.
“The envelope was worn, the letter inside even more so, from all the unfolding and folding through the years. The handwriting featured light strokes of exaggerated cursive with left handed idiosyncrasies here and there. Sometimes she opened the letter just to look at her grandfather’s penmanship, it was something remarkable from another time and place.
Dear Emmy,
We do not know each other well but I have thought of you often. I am leaving the ranch to you instead of to your mother. I wish it to remain in our family and I know that she would sell it. I have left the ranch solely to you however it is my wish that you share the lease payments with Ashley. I know you would have done so regardless. I hope the money blesses both of your long and happy lives. I have left your mother a separate sum of my life savings. I have also left several boxes of your Grandma’s things to Ashley specifically.
Please accept my highest regards,
-Clyde
Reading his handwriting was like meeting him in person. She was loved. Ashley was loved. They were provided for by an unseen distant angel of sorts. He had gifted her with stability when she had needed it most. He trusted her. Family. The word always jolted her. The ranch was to remain in the family, her family.”
