Emmaline is the mother of the Iron family; she has wolfish green eyes and light skin that quickly tans. Emmaline’s father was a cult leader who had several other wives and caused Emmaline’s mother considerable emotional and possibly physical pain. The author describes Emmaline as a “branchy woman, lovely in her angularity […] she was a passionate mother. Landreaux understood after the babies were born he would come second” (8-9). More than anything, Emmaline exists as a maternal figure for the characters within the novel, both for her biological children—Snow, Josette, Coochy, and LaRose—as well as Hollis, the Iron’s surrogate son who they have adopted from Romeo. Emmaline also teaches students at a local on-reservation boarding school that essentially works as crisis intervention for the myriad social ills that plague families on the reservation. She eventually becomes director of this school and works tirelessly to give her students a sense of stability within the tumult of their familial lives, which are often plagued by drug/alcohol dependency, physical/emotional abuse, and neglect. Emmaline rarely shows emotion, often suppressing her urge to cry and instead allowing others space for their own emotions. Father Travis conceptualizes Emmaline as the Virgin Mary (See Quote 5), and she is often the object of male affection, as Landreaux, Father Travis, and Romeo all love her ceaselessly.