Summary

In Chapter 16, Kitty wakes in her own private, quiet world. Later that day as she works in the book store she thinks about the novel Ship of Fools and how it relates to her life. Just like the characters in the confined spaces described in the novel are having to get to know one another wether they want to or not, she is having to get to know the family that she has as Katharyn. Katharyn also thinks about how Katherine Porter, the author of the novel, almost died in 1918 of the Spanish flu. If she had died, she never would have written the novel Ship of Fools. If that had been the case the woman with the autistic child would not have come into her shop and Kathryn would never have realized what was wrong with Michael, her child in the other...