Summary

In Chapter 26, Jack and Wendy are both asleep as Danny is meeting the resident of Room 217. Jack is dreaming over the receipts and papers in the basement. He has come to believe that his strange encounter with the topiary was the result of a nervous breakdown. He has decided to move forward with the book even though he knows it will mean the end of his friendship with Al. He dreams of his father. His father was a cruel drunk, but Jack had loved him up until the age of nine when his father had used a cane to put his mother in the hospital. He had hollered at Jack’s mother to “take her medicine” as he beat her. When the doctor comes, Jack’s father lies and tells him that she fell down...