Mother-Daughter Relationships and the Delicate Balance of Distance in “If You Leave” https://ift.tt/QiohlWE
Margaret Hutton’s debut novel, If You Leave, delivers a poignant and hauntingly beautiful story of two women navigating love, loss, and motherhood. Near the end of World War II, Audrey, “who couldn’t help wanting to draw something pleasing,” pursues her dream as a painter in Washington, D.C. During her time there, she meets Lucille, pregnant and in desperate need of shelter. When Audrey’s husband Ben, a naval doctor, leaves for the war, she feels lonely and opens her home to Lucille. However, after giving birth to her daughter, Lake, Lucille abruptly departs, leaving the baby behind. Hutton highlights Audrey and Lucille’s interactions and experiences, portraying a sisterhood that is at once vulnerable and strong.
Hutton’s narrative moves nonlinearly, shifting between the 1940s and 1970s, as well as geographically between Washington, D.C. and North Carolina. This temporal fluidity may initially disorient readers, but it becomes integral to the story’s emotional architecture, reflecting the fragmented nature of memory and regret while tracing the characters’ dreams, unconscious desires, and recollections. Through this nonlinear flow, Hutton vividly portrays the women’s lives against the backdrop of wartime, exploring the complex realities of motherhood and probing what it means to be a “mother,” as Audrey reflects: “Men go to war to prove they’re as tough as women in childbirth.” When Lucille leaves, Audrey reluctantly — and yet willingly — assumes the maternal role, caring for Lake. Caught between two mother figures, Lake struggles with her conflicting attachments: “I want her to come,” she says of Lucille, “but I don’t want you to go.” True to her name, Lake mirrors their images and pasts, embodying the generational trauma shaped by war and patriarchal constraints.
In a vivid scene, Hutton likens Lucille’s childbirth of Lake to a crucifixion and alludes to Mary’s absence during Jesus’s suffering. Looking at the doctor, who appears “like a Roman soldier,” Lucille reflects: “Worse than crucifixion. / Mother, where are you?” This reflection not only indicates Lucille’s missing her mother but also foreshadows her own abandonment of Lake, complicating traditional notions of maternal love. Yet, Hutton refuses to cast judgment. Instead, she invites readers to consider the historical and personal circumstances that might compel such an act, stating that “this isn’t her nature. What happened went against her nature.”
When the three women reunite thirty years later, Lucille’s desire for forgiveness collides with Audrey’s longing to break free from her unhappy marriage and Lake’s entrapment in an abusive relationship. In these intertwined stories, abandonment and return unfold in a cyclical rhythm — echoing Persephone’s departures from and reunions with Demeter, roles that Lake, an aspiring actress, portrays on stage.
Building on this theme, birds and sea waves also emerge as recurring motifs throughout the novel. Audrey compares her first impression of Lucille to “a tiny bird [that] has lighted on [her] hand,” and Hutton threads the gentle warbling of birds throughout the narrative, creating a subtle, persistent soundtrack to the characters’ lives. These delicate and sensory details invite readers to feel the intimate interplay between humans and the natural world, deepening their understanding of a story in which human relationships are shaped by the rhythms of presence and absence. This connection between character and environment becomes especially vivid in the scene following Audrey’s restless arguments with Ben, where Audrey and Lake spend time together at the seashore: “In the shallow tide, they sat for hours, the receding waves sucking their bottoms deeper and deeper into the sand, little oceans of their own filling up around them.” Here, the shore functions both as a sanctuary from human conflict and as a mirror to relational dynamics — the waves’ continuous ebb and flow echoing the coming and going of loved ones, the tensions of intimacy, and the delicate balance between closeness and distance in human bonds.
Close to the novel’s end, Lucille — who had once left Audrey in pursuit of her own freedom — returns and now supports Audrey’s journey of leaving. She helps Audrey transition to a studio, separated from Ben, where she can paint freely: “She painted like mad in the new studio. This was what she’d always wanted — space, time, light.” Audrey’s reclamation of space and time in the studio echoes the theme of coming and going, a motif that reaches its emotional apex at the airport, a symbolic space of departure and return. As they bid farewell to Lake, who leaves for Russia to pursue her acting career, the two women are reunited with their daughter. Returning to the bird motif, Hutton captures the poignancy of this moment through Audrey’s observation of Lake’s departure: “the plane sails along the ground and soars upward, and then, small as a bird, disappears into the clouds.” Hutton suggests that Lake’s departure signifies more than mere physical distance from her mother figures — it embodies a bittersweet affirmation of love and the discovery of her true self, beyond others’ expectations.
If You Leave is the perfect book to read in the fall, as leaves begin drifting from the trees. In leaving, there is also presence — the absence deepens awareness and heightens feeling. Through her interwoven narratives, Hutton emphasizes how leaving can be an act of love, growth, and self-discovery, especially between mothers and daughters. Departures are not merely endings; they are moments that illuminate connection, resilience, and the cyclical rhythms of human relationships.
FICTION If You Leave
By Margaret Hutton
Regal House Publishing
Published October 21, 2025
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