Part 3, Alice, Chapters 17-18 Summary

Alice cannot agree with Theresa that she has learned to embrace fear in jail. She has learned to be quiet and to wait, as she had as a girl, working on her map of the world. She cannot satisfy Howard's desire for details on life in jail, for only after her release does she register fear. Jail has an oral tradition in which stories grow but contain a form of truth. Alice must put the pieces together. The Racine jail is relatively mild, but people are distorted into caricatures. Soon after her arrest, Alice realizes that she is beyond fighting, hoping, or praying. Her fate and her family's fate is sealed. That Robbie will suffer the most is sad. She wishes that she could be put in the stocks and have it over. In jail Alice reads...