Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary

Mikey lies in bed thinking about a debate that he had several days before with his teacher. He hears his father in the bathroom and begins to think about his mother in the hospital. "But his mother's distance bothers him, the feeling that she is detached from her surroundings, that she is burrowing into her pain for comfort" (pg. 28). He thinks that he doesn't know his mother anymore. Mikey knows that his mother thinks about things because he has seen her bent over her desk writing in her diary but he does not know what she writes about.

Mikey hears his father leave as his car pulls out into the rain. His father, Mikey thinks, is a man who can't tell you anything when you look him in the eyes and yet, he is trying to reconcile the country's problems. Mikey...