Chapter Nineteen Summary

When Ginny sees that Tom is dead, she doesn't know what to do with herself. All she wants to do is crawl into bed next to him one last time and pretend it never happened. In the moments after Tom's death, she goes through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Suddenly, she thinks about the money Tom hoarded and begins searching the room for it. She finds the money rolled and stacked in the cigar box at the back of the wardrobe. Also in the cigar box is the whale bone button from Tom's father's confederate army uniform and a newspaper clipping about his marriage to Ginny. She never knew he had saved those artifacts. Ginny also thinks about all the things she won't be able to do on the land now that Tom is gone...