I Know This Much Is True

Dominick and Leo are taken to the police station, where they are questioned separately. The officer who meets with Dominick wants information on Ralph, the source of their drugs, and then turns the conversation to a potential relationship between Ralph and Dell. Dominick is unsure of how to respond, not knowing what Leo has told them. The officer continues to goad Dominick into revealing that Ralph is planning to sell marijuana. Dominick tries to evade the questions by playing dumb, but he finally admits that Leo discussed buying a pound of marijuana from Ralph.

Leo and Dominick are released just after midnight. Dominick wants to know what Leo told the police, especially since they knew about Dell’s verbal abuse of Thomas. Leo downplays Dominick’s concern, insisting that his suggestion that there is a sexual relationship between Dell and Ralph proved an effective way to take the focus off the joints found in Leo’s car. Leo reveals that he lied and told the police that Ralph gave him the marijuana in exchange for sex. Leo is unapologetic for painting a negative image of Ralph, but Dominick is outraged that Leo is willing to belittle others to protect himself. They argue, and Dominick ends up storming out of the car and walking home.

The chapter ends with a therapy session between Dominick and Dr. Patel, in which they discuss Dominick’s memories of the events from 1969.

Dominick and Dessa make up, and Dominick returns to school. The tension between him and Leo also slowly heals. When Dessa arrives to meet Thomas, her younger sister, Angie, tags along. Eager to one-up her older sister, Angie proceeds to woo Thomas. They begin dating, which reassures Dominick that Thomas is “normal.”

In November, Dell Weeks and his wife are arrested for manufacturing child pornography. Though he is not named, Dominick and Leo can glean that the victim of the material is Ralph Drinkwater, who has lived with Dell since he was 10. The first draft lottery for the Vietnam conflict is held that month, and Thomas draws a low number, meaning that he is likely to be drafted. Dominick assures him that as long as he maintains good grades, he will be able to successfully wait out the war.

Thomas’s behavior is increasingly strange: Angie breaks up with him because of his habit of insisting that she read to him from a book about martyred saints during sex. Thomas drops out of school, moving back in with his mother and Ray. He is called up by the US Army but fails the psychiatric evaluation. On his birthday on December 31, he smashes the cake’s lit candles into the icing. Their mother, panicked, asks Dominick to speak with him. She cannot determine what is bothering him, explaining that he sleeps all day and roams the house at night.

Dominick takes Thomas out to lunch, and Thomas reveals that he believes himself to be a special agent working against the Russians. He spouts grandiose beliefs and paranoid fears. Dominick is certain that Thomas has a severe mental health condition.

Dominick meets with Lisa Sheffer to prepare for the hearing with the Review Board. She agrees with Dominick that Hatch is not the best place for Thomas given his paranoia about surveillance. Dr. Patel, however, has not made up her mind about how she will vote. Sheffer confides in Dominick that Settle may be closing and that this might mean that Thomas must live with Dominick. Dominick says that he is willing to do this if it means getting Thomas out of Hatch.

Ralph Drinkwater, who works as a custodian, replaces a lightbulb in Sheffer’s office while Dominick is there. Dominick tries to engage with him, but Ralph refuses to speak with him. Finally, he gestures to the yard where a group of men is gathered, Thomas among them. Dominick watches: Thomas has gained weight and is listless; some of the residents bully him by throwing a hacky sack at him. Dominick asks Ralph to keep him informed about how Thomas is doing. Ralph does not agree to do so, but he does take Dominick’s phone number.

Dominick wakes up and prepares to run errands. As he prepares to bring some trash to the dump, however, he finds a pregnancy test that Joy has taken in the trash. He is certain that it must be a mistake since he has had a vasectomy, but then he wonders if Joy is having an affair.

Finally, Dominick arrives at Hatch to prepare for Thomas’s hearing. Sheffer informs him that he has finally been cleared to visit Thomas and can do so after their meeting. Dr. Patel, however, has abstained from voting for or against Thomas’s release, so they cannot offer a recommendation to the Review Board. Sheffer stresses that this makes Dominick’s testimony even more important.

In their visit, Thomas is agitated—adamant that he is being tortured and that news is purposefully being kept from him because they know that he is attempting to stop the war in the Middle East. When Sheffer tries to coach him on what to say about his arm in the hearing, Thomas insists that it was a sacrifice to God in an attempt to prevent the apocalypse. He asks Dominick to bring him a jar of water from the river in the cemetery, as he thinks that it may cleanse his brain. This is important to Dominick because it is one of the rare times that Thomas acknowledges his illness.

Back at home, Dominick lashes out at Joy when he finds her friend Thad there. They argue, and Joy leaves. Joy wakes him up in the middle of the night for sex, however, and then tells Dominick that she is pregnant.

Dominick is awakened around 1:00 am from a shallow sleep by the sounds of kids smashing pumpkins and throwing eggs. Angered, he tries to watch television, but then he gets in his truck and drives. He drives past Dessa’s house and then past the state hospital and the plant where Ray worked. He fumes at the thoughts of Joy cheating on him and of Dessa rejecting him. He stops briefly at the beach, notices a police officer, and then continues driving.

At some point, Dominick falls asleep at the wheel and then crashes in a field.

After receiving stitches at the hospital, Dominick has his truck towed to Constantine Motors, his ex-father-in-law’s dealership. He waits for the claims adjuster and calculates whether he has time to begin painting the shutters on the Roods’ home before Thomas’s hearing at four o’clock that afternoon. The insurance agent finally arrives, and Leo chats with him about the new Wequonnoc casino coming to town and the possibility of war in the Middle East. Dominick grows increasingly angry and agitated, especially when he learns that the agent knows Joy from the health club.

The agent deems the truck totaled, and Dominick calls Ray to pick him up.

Ray picks Dominick up and drives him to the pharmacy and then to the Roods’ home. Dominick remembers that Ray’s birthday is the next day, November 1. He recalls how diligent Thomas was when they were young about saving money for a gift for Ray. He also remembers Ray’s disgust at Halloween. Once, he snuck Halloween candy to Thomas during church, and Thomas was beaten by Ray afterward.

At the Roods’ house, Dominick struggles to remove the shutters with one hand. He forces himself to do so despite the pain, not wanting to take any more pain killers before the hearing. Ruth Rood appears, asking him to leave because her husband is feeling depressed. Dominick explains that he totaled his truck and cannot leave until Ray returns for him. Dominick climbs the ladder again and again, removing the shutters and willing Ray to arrive. Finally, the only shutters left are those on the third-story windows. As Dominick reaches the third floor, Henry Rood appears at the window, with a gun in his mouth. Dominick falls from the ladder.

Dominick wakes up in a hospital on November 3, three days after the accident. He has shattered bones in his foot and leg, which required emergency surgery. The morphine and other painkillers have caused him to have strange dreams. Henry Rood died instantly of the gunshot wound.

When Dominick realizes that he has missed Thomas’s hearing, he calls Lisa Sheffer, who says that she will come to the hospital. He calls Joy next and learns that she has informed all of the hospital staff of her pregnancy. His roommate, who is talkative, works at the same plant as Ray and worries about layoffs.

Sheffer arrives and recounts the hearing: When Dominick did not appear, Thomas became certain that Dominick must be hurt. Sheffer tried to calm him, but Thomas struck her, causing her lip to bleed. Sheffer presented Thomas to the Review Board, explaining that his care team was unable to reach a consensus about a recommendation of whether to remit him to Hatch or to release him. Sheffer then gives Dominick the transcript of the board’s questioning of Thomas. In it, Thomas insists that he is a messenger of God and admits, after the board repeatedly presses him, that he would indeed harm someone if the voice of Jesus commanded him to. As a result, the board orders him to remain at Hatch for one year.

As Sheffer leaves, Joy arrives. Dominick reveals his vasectomy to her as well as the truth about Angela. Joy is stunned but denies having an affair. She sneaks out of his room when a nurse enters to change Dominick’s catheter.

Ray and Leo both visit in the afternoon, and then Joy’s friend Thad suddenly appears. He hands Dominick a cassette tape and Walkman, explaining that Joy recorded something for him.

On the tape, Joy speaks about her childhood and how its dysfunction made her long for a perfect family. She fears that Dominick will believe that the pregnancy is her way of trapping him into a marriage and then admits that the father of the baby is Thad. Joy goes on to confess even more: Thad is her half-brother and has sometimes watched her and Dominick have sex. Joy plans to move out of Dominick’s condo and live with her mother while she waits for the baby to be born.

Dominick finishes the tape and runs through the ways he might kill himself. As he is thinking, Nedra Frank suddenly appears—Dominick’s hospital roommate is her fiancé.