Summary
After the cornfield incident, Jack sustained a knee injury which needs urgent surgery. Lindsey panics when she realises her father is not in the house but Abigail has a comparatively cold reaction and Buckley clings to Lindsey. Len Fenerman arrives at the hospital at Abigail’s request and they sneak off to an off-limits area and are intimate together. Susie then develops a new understanding of Abigail’s motivations and she observes the changes to her family. Susie also talks about the way souls often gather above hospitals before entering heaven and how she can see and feel this happening.
Characterisation: shifting family roles (AO3)
Jack’s disappearance impacts the Salmon’s and it underlines how the family roles have shifted significantly. Susie’s disappearance started this process and as time went on the roles became more and more entrenched. Although, Lindsey’s initial reaction to discovering Jack has left the house was a youthful panic, she took on a more responsible role. She considers the need to go and help Jack but Abigail responds by doing nothing but waiting. The sound of police sirens that Susie mentioned beforehand emphasises that Abigail’s reaction was particularly bizarre; Lindsey was ‘dumbfounded’ in shock.
Place/space and time (AO1, AO2, AO3)
This indicates that the locus of the family is no longer within the family home. In the 1970s, the nuclear family was the conventional family model and the home itself was the traditional centre of the family. Lindsey now feels that the ‘heart of her family’ is situated in the location of her sister’s murder site. When Lindsey arrives at the hospital Abigail is not there because she was waiting for Len Fenerman outside; they then have a romantic encounter. Susie is struck by the fact that her mother is behaving completely differently, now seemingly outside of the conventional mother and wife roles she had always maintained.
Point of view and narrative voice (AO1, AO2)
Susie tells us that she is present in the hospital room when Lindsey arrives. Lindsey is astonished at how their family seems to have shifted however Susie mentioned that she is not prised about the new version of her mother with Len Fenerman. Susie spends a lot of the chapter sympathising with her mother. Susie refers to the mythical space between her heaven and earth as the ‘in between’. Susie’s new understanding of Abigail allows her to appreciate the reasons behind her affair; Susie now sees Abigail’s loneliness as a key factor in her identity, more important perhaps than her youth.
Context of production and reception: social context (AO1, AO3)
Susie admits the negative impact of Abigail’s last pregnancy; she tells us that her mother was ready for a ‘half-measure return to the world’ when this was ‘smashed’ by expecting Buckley. The dynamic verb ‘smashed’ to describe the impact of the pregnancy connotes something being broken with force. Susie sees the arrival of her little brother as very damaging to Abigail’s well-being and how Abigail hid parts of her character after Buckley’s birth. Susie also acknowledges that, had she had lived, she probably would not have seen this effect upon Abigail; in death, she is more able to see the bigger picture where her mother is concerned, and challenges the idea that motherhood is always fulfilling.
What does Jack need to have done to his knee?
Emergency surgery.
What does Len Fenerman reveal about how his wife died?
She took her own life.
