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Summary
Chapters Thirty—Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty
Overwhelmed with grief, Frankie throws herself into work with obsessive fervor. She uses the pills Bette gave her to stay awake or sleep. Her nightmares of Vietnam have returned with a vengeance. She’s so strung out that she zones out during a triage session for a gunshot wound. The attending surgeon is furious and kicks her out.
The following day, Frankie visits the beach and sees Rye with his wife, Melissa, and their daughter, Joey. Despite herself, she follows them home to a street full of Naval families, but drives away quickly when Rye notices her. That night, she misses her shift at the hospital.
Mrs. Stone—the director of nursing— expresses concern about Frankie’s behavior. She thinks it’s because of the miscarriage and insists she take a leave of absence. While she’s on leave Rye unexpectedly visits her and explains his marriage. He married Melissa before shipping out, partly because she was pregnant and partly to have someone waiting for him. He tells Frankie that he’ll leave Melissa, and he and Frankie have sex.
Chapter Thirty-One
That summer, Frankie and Rye continue their relationship in secret, and Frankie takes more and more uppers and downers. Rye promises he’s consulting a lawyer and getting a divorce. In August, Frankie and Ethel attend Barb’s wedding. Frankie resolves to end things with Rye. However, when she tells him, he proposes to her. Frankie returns to work, feeling hopeful. Rye doesn’t meet her when he tells her he will at a fitting for her wedding dress, and she learns back at work that his wife Melissa has had a second baby. Frankie confronts Rye at the hospital but runs away before things are resolved. She takes two Valium and goes out drinking, crashing her car into a cyclist on her way home.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Frankie wakes up in the hospital. She’s worried she is a murderer, but then learns the bicyclist, Bill Brightman, is unharmed. She is charged with a DUI. Recognizing her need for help, she tries to go to a VA therapy session but is turned away when she’s told it’s only for men. Feeling hopeless, Frankie reaches out to Bill to apologize. When she goes home, she takes far more pills than she needs to. Frankie awakens in an ambulance after overdosing. Believing it to be a suicide attempt, her father has her placed on a mandatory psychiatric hold.
Chapter Thirty-Three
When Frankie regains clarity, she meets with the director of the psych ward, who turns out to be Henry. Henry suggests that Frankie may be dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder from her time in Vietnam. Frankie dismisses the idea, arguing she didn’t see combat. Henry counters that trauma is not a competition. He reminds her that she worked in dangerous conditions, and that it was not only POWs who suffered hardship. Henry introduces Frankie to Dr. Alden, her new therapist. Over the next week, she begins opening up about her experiences. When Barb visits, Frankie confides in her about everything, finally unburdening herself about Rye.
Analysis
As the low point of Frankie’s story approaches, the story focuses intensely on how being blinded by love distorts her judgement and drives her into self-destructive behavior. Her intense attachment to Rye prevents her from accepting reality. There’s a clear parallel between her idealistic vision of her work in the Army and the perfect future she dreams of with Rye. Both choices promised her happiness and acceptance, and both resulted in feelings of disillusionment and despair.
Frankie’s love for Rye overrides reason from the outset. It’s clear that she is irresistibly drawn to him from the beginning of their reacquaintance, regardless of how much energy she pours into first trying to deny him, and then in trying to make their relationship a reality. Despite his betrayal and the misery she feels, she remains emotionally tethered to him. Her decision to cancel her wedding to Henry and to abandon one of her only existing support structures shows how devoted she still is to Rye. Henry offers true stability, yet Frankie rejects him because her longing for Rye consumes her. This emotional blindness is only compounded by her inability to accept that Rye is unavailable and untrustworthy. When Rye visits her and offers explanations for all of his transgressions, he doesn’t offer any more proof than he did previously for the offers he makes to Frankie.
Frankie’s almost immediate willingness to forgive him and resume the relationship shows her inability to see his actions for what they are—empty promises. Her love for Rye causes her to believe his words instead of focusing on the evidence of his actions.
Frankie’s dependence on pills parallels her emotional dependence on Rye; she is addicted to the ups and downs of their relationship as much as she relies on the uppers and downers she takes. Both serve as coping mechanisms, dulling the pain of a reality she finds unfulfilling. She spirals into deeper emotional and physical instability as the relationship progresses, deluding herself to an extent that is almost painful for the reader.
When Rye fails to show up for her at the bridal salon and misses the fitting for her wedding dress, Frankie knows something is wrong. When she finds out that his wife is pregnant again and that he never left her, the bottom falls out of her world. Her response to this devastating news reveals the extent to which her love for Rye has destabilized her. Her overdose, although accidental, is the culmination of her emotional blindness. Frankie’s inability to let go of Rye drives her to a point of despair where she loses all control. The overdose is not just a reaction to Rye’s betrayal, however. It’s also because the two major loves of Frankie’s life—Rye and the Army—have taken everything she offered and sacrificed and given her nothing in return. Like the rumors of atrocities and false reporting that started to escalate during her time in Vietnam, Frankie had more evidence that she was following the wrong path than the right one in her relationship with Rye. It takes the total removal of Rye from her everyday life for Frankie to begin healing in earnest.
