Chapters Twenty-three and Twenty-four Summary

In Chapter Twenty-three Nomi's mother is excommunicated from the church. Nomi is not able to talk to her mother about the excommunication. She only had a dim memory of her mother sitting on her bed the night before smiling at her. Nomi isn't aware then that her mother has left for good. Her father spends the next day standing in his suit in front of the picture window staring at the highway. Trudie's mother's drinking gets worse.

A month or two after her mother leaves, Nomi runs into Mrs. Klippenstein at Rest Haven. Her kids had made her move in there. Nomi wonders where her mother was going nearly every evening if she was not needed at Mrs. Klippenstein's house. Nomi learns to do laundry and uses her mother's drawers to store some of her father's things...