Chapter 4 Summary

In spring 1953 the boy's mother sinks into depression and mental illness. The boy thinks he knows the reason why, especially by the way she looks at his father with such pity and fear, as if there is something she wants to be forgiven for. The boy wants to comfort her, but cannot tell her that he knows her secret. She often looks out of the stair window whispering and crying and she has visions of fires outside. At night, she starts sleepwalking and going outside in her nightdress, saying that everything is burning.

The boy's father thinks that it is the result of losing her father, which had also brought back her grief at the loss of Una. The boy senses that there is someone else that his mother is grieving for. After being prescribed drugs by the doctor, she becomes robotic and...