Summary

Chapter 46. This chapter, and the novel’s concluding section, begin this way: “yesterday morning I left Esther resting on my cot and walked out into the swale to collect wood” (255). In present tense narration, Samuel reveals that it has been three years since he “dropped down the “Jew hole” … and made my escape back to the old hut, where the feed has long since snuffed out. The hut makes a small home for me now. The orange cable has gone cold” (255). He also contemplates how he has been rebuilding his role as a father to Esther, considering how he waited for her outside the quarantine area when she was scheduled to be released, having matured past the age where youth protected her from the poisons of language. “…we all grow up to speechlessness now, don’t we” (256). He also contemplates what it...