Chapter 12 Summary

"The Fifth Person Eddie Meets in Heaven." Eddie sees only white now, and there is only silence. Marguerite is gone. He hears shrieking noises and finds that they are the voices of brown-skinned children playing in a river, and then he sees one small girl standing apart and beckoning him to come to her.

"It Is Eddie's Birthday." Eddie is fifty-one, on his first birthday since Marguerite's death. He doesn't celebrate any more. Then he is sixty, and he goes to work and uses some bologna from his sandwich to fish. Then he is sixty-eight, and his brother Joe calls from Florida to wish him a happy birthday. Then he is seventy-five, and he works at the park. Then at last he is eighty-two, and he takes a taxi to the cemetery to visit his parents' graves, his brother's grave and, at last...