Summary

At 5:14 p.m. on Tuesday, January 18th, Ginny sits at the dinner table with her Forever Parents discussing “the last good time” they will have together on Sunday, January 23rd at the Special Olympics basketball tournament (264). The next day, they will visit St. Genevieve’s boarding school where Maura reassures Ginny, “everyone will be special” (262). Brian observes that Ginny seems “awfully distracted,” and he begins to cry (263). Ginny wants to go to her room, so she is excused from the table.

At 5:28 p.m., Ginny looks at her reflection and sees (-Ginny) as she climbs out of her bedroom window and drops into the snowy woods behind the Blue House. She imagines the ladder from Robert Frost’s poem and questions if it will still be “like heaven” to “escape and find [her] Baby Doll” if she did not use a ladder to...