Summary

Miriam and Ralph are talking outside the shed in the woods, unaware that two men are watching them. When Ralph dares to ask her why she whispers, she decides to be brave and tells him about her mother threatening to hit her with a cricket bat for speaking (156), and about being ridiculed at school for always whispering. Upon hearing this, Ralph is so overcome by empathy that he opens his arms and holds her, which Miriam allows. Later, Ralph thinks back to his childhood, and how his parents loved one another deeply, to the point of Ralph feeling embarrassed about them. He realizes that their infatuation with one another allowed him to “do his own thing, he didn’t have to be happy” (175).

In Chapter 21, the narrative reveals that Miriam's mother killed herself three years prior by leaping off a high rock escarpment...