Chapters 41-Epilogue Summary

Chapter forty-one summarizes the next decade. Ned sees his father no more than a dozen times during this period, even though he is living in New York City, and there is a bus that goes straight to downtown Mohawk from the Port Authority. Ned becomes a book editor in Manhattan, and every time he visits his father, it seems as though Sam deteriorates a little bit more.

One day, Ned receives a newspaper clipping from the Mohawk Republican in the mail with no note. It is about the death of Miss Rachael Agajanian. She was living in a nursing home and had been on an excursion to the Mohawk Fair with a group of senior citizens. Her wheelchair somehow went in reverse on the merry-go-round, and she ended up tangled in machinery and dragged several revolutions before the attendant was able...