Summary

When Chapter 5 opens, Howland has settled into “a kind of dormancy,” in which residents have become “accustomed to austerity” (355). Mark and Karen have divorced, and they share custody of Haley. They have had to sell their previous family house. Haley now attends the local public high school.

For the end-of-year research paper for her U.S. history class, Haley wrote about Caldwell House at the suggestion of Karen, who has been promoted there. Researching the house, Haley learned that Winston Caldwell was not a benevolent patriarch, as the house’s development committee would have visitors believe, but a ruthless steel baron with racist hiring practices who had striking laborers murdered. She got an A-minus on the paper. Karen was upset that Haley chose to focus on the house’s negative history.

That summer, Haley got a job bussing tables at Todd Van Dyke’s...