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Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
Notes from the Deposition of Connie George, Chief Nurse Officer of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, describe Momma as a caring, but oddly so, neonatal nurse. The chief nurse recalls that Momma was too attached to the babies in her care. At the time of her employ, Momma’s husband—presumably Mary’s father—passed away, and Momma was not the same when she returned to work. She started “getting really agitated with the new mothers; she even started singing and praying hard over the preemies in intensive care” (79). Ms. George let Momma go, and some time afterward, Momma visited Ms. George with her new daughter, Mary. The nurse recalls “never seeing a new mother look so, well, regular, after giving birth. She was glowing. Good for her I thought. Seemed like having her little girl was helping her get back on track” (79).
Ted accompanies Mary to Brooklyn Tech where she plans to take a practice SAT. The woman at the registration table questions Mary, and Mary must admit that she does not attend school, or have an ID or graphing calculator. The woman finishes processing the other students and then returns to Mary, who cannot even provide her address, for fear Ms. Stein and the others will learn she took the test, and the test woman will discover she lives in a home. The woman eventually allows Mary and the others to test because it is only for practice.
Notes from the deposition of Mary’s fourth-grade teacher highlight not only Mary’s intelligence but her nurturing character. The teacher reports having had Mary tested and learning Mary was at least two grades ahead of her peers. Momma “flipped out” and threatened to sue the school for unauthorized testing. The teacher, confused, says, “Most parents want their children to advance and would be thrilled. It just didn’t make sense to leave her in a class where she wasn’t challenged. Poor Mary. She was just so bored” (84).
After the test, over lunch, Ted asks Mary about her little brother and she distracts him. He finally tells Mary about the 14-year-old follower he had been; the one who held down the arms of a 13-year-old girl so the older members of his gang could rape her. He tells Mary how he let her go and that his gang blamed him for the fact they were caught. Ted recently ran into the gang, which explains his busted lip and under-eye cuts. He tells Mary, “But I swear on everything, I didn’t rape the girl. I would never do that. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just a kid” (107). This sounds all too familiar to Mary, as it was the defense her lawyers had used for her. Ted remembers it is her birthday and gives her a birthday cake. He celebrates Mary as well as his excitement for their baby. She relishes in making Ted happy, saying it’s the best birthday present of all, but below the surface, she knows his happiness with her and their life together is fleeting. Not only is he showing glimmers of a violent temper and a side of himself that scares her, but she knows it is inevitable that he will learn of her past and Alyssa’s death.
That night in group therapy, Kisha recites a poem; everyone applauds but Mary, who knows Kisha has plagiarized the work of Maya Angelou. No one knows the work but Mary. The girls are asked to recall happy moments, and Mary recalls church Sundays with Momma, how they dressed alike and people called Mary and Momma the Addison twins; how they’d go to IHOP for strawberry pancakes with extra whipped cream. Mary’s next memory is of her mother getting all dressed up and returning four hours later with Ray, “the ray of sunshine she had been waiting for” (93). Everything changed. Momma ceased being Mary’s mother. Momma dropped the last name she shared with Mary and was loyal only to Ray, who took all their money, influenced Momma to beat Mary, caroused with other women, and then left.
Mary goes to the clinic for an assessment. In the waiting room, Mary recalls Momma’s unwillingness to take her to the doctor, even when Mary was gravely ill. Momma believes doctors are all crooks looking to take their money, but Mary realizes it was more likely because the doctors would have questioned all of Mary’s scars and bruises.
Chapter 5 Summary
In notes from the Chief Psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital, it is revealed that Mary had been prescribed many drugs upon arrival and that they continued her on Ritalin. However, there are no official reports from her original diagnoses, leading him to believe she was never tested at all, but simply medicated at the request of her mother. In her file, the doctor learned that Mary had always been an excellent student, never displaying any inattentiveness or impulsivity, producing the excellent work of a detail-oriented student.
Mary gets the results from her first SAT practice test and she has done well. The teacher at the center is encouraging, and when she realizes that Mary cannot afford classes, she offers to let her attend hers for free.
At the hospital, Mary has sex with Ted in a hospital bed next to a dying patient. They discuss running away together. Ted does not want Mary or their baby living in the home because it is dangerous. Mary listens but knows his planning is for naught and that the state plans to take their baby and give it up for adoption. When Mary parts from Ted, she is surprised and unsettled to find Ms. Carmen at the hospital, interrogating Ms. Legion, the volunteer coordinator: “Having someone from the group home, in the hospital, the one place I have peace, brings back the type of fear I haven’t felt since Ray was still alive” (121). Just then, as Ms. Carmen is asking who Mary spends time with, Ted backs out of the elevator. While Mary surreptitiously eyes Ted, signaling him to turn around, Ms. Carmen asks if Mary has a boyfriend. Ms. Legion jokingly mentions one of the elderly men who has a crush on Mary, but then says, “Mary is one of our best volunteers here. Very gentle with the patients” (121). Ted eventually realizes he needs to disappear and does, though Ms. Carmen is not satisfied with her inquiry and will continue digging until she discovers the identity of the father.
At the end of the chapter, Mary pleads with Winters to contact her lawyer, that she “didn’t do it” and needs to set things straight. It is becoming increasingly clear that Mary has been wrongfully charged. Winters, somewhat put out by the request, agrees to help her find some small path forward, though he doesn’t believe she really has options. When Mary returns to her room, she finds her sheets—the ones she’d just put back on her bed—sliced to bits and in a pile on the hallway floor. Someone else in the home has a knife, and Mary wonders who it is.
Chapter 6 Summary
Mary is planning to go on a date with Ted when Momma arrives, off schedule, and wants to take her for ice cream. Momma is not wearing her church best and is uncharacteristically nice to Mary, despite knowing that Mary is pregnant. On her way out, she sees Momma with “that look on her face, like her body is still here but her mind is a thousand other places at once. […] She is not taking her pills” (134).
Mary spends the day with Momma, who is uncharacteristically complementary and generous. She brings up fond memories of Mary’s childhood, referring to her repeatedly as her baby girl, and she flatters Mary by telling her how pretty she is after having her makeup done at the MAC counter. On the way back to the home, Momma offers to bring Mary her favorite homemade meal, chicken and dumplings, and Mary loves the attention. She had forgotten “how magical [Momma] makes everything she touches. Turning something as simple as showing me how to apply mascara into a memory” (143). No sooner had Mary let down her guard and allowed herself to wish things could always be this way, than Momma tells her to stop discussing Alyssa. Mary enters the house and Winters confirms her suspicions about Momma’s behavior. Mary is enraged at herself for being so stupid.
The next day at work, Mary talks to Ted about the night of Alyssa’s death. He is convinced Mary is innocent and wants her to tell the authorities. Mary claims that no one will believe her, but Ted is upset; he doesn’t want them to lose their baby, and he doesn’t want Mary to take the blame for something she didn’t do.
That night, Ms. Veronica pulls Mary aside and wants Mary to talk to her about her pregnancy, but Mary does not trust Ms. Veronica. While Mary is in the shower, some girls ransack her room and steal her entire savings—400 dollars. Mary finds her money in Kelly’s coat pocket and takes it. She is fed up and out for revenge. Knowing Ms. Stein has no recourse because Mary’s superiors are monitoring her, Mary pours bleach in Kelly’s bed and hits Tara over the head with a lamp. Kelly, not as smart as Mary, plays into Mary’s hand. She chases Mary downstairs to the kitchen where Mary throws a pot of boiling water and oil into Kelly’s face. Ms. Reba and Ms. Stein arrive in the kitchen and ask Mary if she’s crazy. Mary responds, “No. I’m pregnant. [Kelly] was gonna kill me first,” and to Ms. Stein she says, “And you let them beat me” (156). Because most of the girls have battle scars from Kelly and Tara, and Ms. Stein and Ms. Reba let a pregnant underage girl get bullied without ever filing a single incident report, “they’re screwed” (157). For that reason, Ms. Stein tries to treat Kelly at home but ends up taking her to the hospital where Kelly stays. Winters is on his way over, and Ms. Stein pulls Mary into her office to ask what she will tell him. Mary leverages Ms. Stein’s mistreatment to get what she wants: her SAT book, a new roommate, and a copy of her birth certificate.
New Girl moves in with Mary and suggests that the Absolution Project can help with Mary’s appeal. That night at their group session, Mary learns that New Girl had tried to kill her mom, and her mom is in a coma. New Girl claims it was an accident, but “[a]in’t no one in here ‘cause of some accident” (168). The girls taunt New Girl, and New Girl asks Mary, “[W]e’re friends, right?” (168). Mary says she guesses so, and New Girl is happy.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
Ms. George’s impartial deposition is an observation of Momma while she’d worked under Ms. George in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Kings County Hospital. Ms. George recounts Momma’s increasingly odd behavior around new moms and babies that led to Momma’s firing. Because Ms. George’s account is evenhanded, the reader has no reason to question its veracity. Ms. George says, “I’ve been working [there] for close to twenty-five years and I’ve never seen a new mother look so, well, regular, after giving birth” (79). The word “regular” implies that Momma’s body did not appear to have been through the dramatic changes that come with maternity and postpartum. However, when Jackson follows this sentence with “She was glowing” (79), the direction shifts abruptly, conveying a postpartum euphoria. Jackson uses “regular” as a double entendre, hinting that Momma may not be Mary’s biological mother.
By the end of Chapter 5, Mary has all but convinced the reader of her innocence, but she has yet to explain herself to Ted. In Chapter 6, Ted finds Mary at work and she feels compelled to tell him what happened to Alyssa. Mary tells “her” story, but as she begins to speak, the author inserts the transcript from Mrs. Richardson’s interview with police shortly after Alyssa’s death. Jackson’s interruption of the dominant, first-person narrative with the objective, third-person narration of Mrs. Richardson, who was not present at Alyssa’s death, cuts the reader off from Mary’s conversation with Ted. The author appears to use Mrs. Richardson to run interference for Mary, keeping Mary’s story of the events contained. One can only surmise that Mary has embraced Mrs. Richardson’s version as her own, because afterward, Ted is certain of Mary’s innocence and emphatic that she tell the authorities.
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