Chapters 29, 30, 31 and 32 Summary

These chapters focus on Gertie's slow, often painful, but occasionally affirming efforts to rejoin the life of her community following Cassie's death.

Chapter 29 - Gertie rouses herself from a days-long doze that is half-sleep and half drug-induced stupor - Mrs. Anderson has been bringing her glass after glass of liquid tranquilizer. She takes a series of careful, tentative steps back into the life of her home and her neighbors, listening with growing impatience to Mrs. Anderson's complaints about her husband and the fact that she's had to give up her painting in order to help him advance in his research and his job. She also looks after Mrs. Anderson's troublesome children. One time while searching for her son, she encounters a woman proudly putting a cactus out on her front step, and then later on the same search, tries not to...