Summary

Chapter 7 advances the plot by ten years. The narrator describes how Marilyn and James orient themselves around Lydia and the promise for a better future that she offers for the whole family. James sees her as solace from the daily reminders of how he is an outcast, and Marilyn sees Lydia as a brilliant student and future doctor. At dinner, Nath and Hannah are treated as afterthoughts. Lydia agrees to all the things her parents push on her: taking summer classes, going to school dances, enrolling in college biology classes. The reader learns during the children's winter break that Lydia has been failing physics, her grades dropping with each exam, and now she has to have her mother sign her failed exam in acknowledgement of her daughter's struggles. Lydia has put it off for weeks. Yet, what frightens Lydia more is the letter...