57 pages • 1 hour read
Miracle Creek
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BetaPart 4, Chapters 26-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4: “The Trial: Day Four”
Chapter 26 Summary: “Elizabeth”
During a recess, Elizabeth sees a group of mothers from the autism support group she belonged to, and for a moment believes they are there to support her. After Henry’s improvement, she was “a rock star, a miracle worker, the leader of the in-crowd, because she was what everyone dreamed of becoming: the mother of a Recovered Child […]” (259). However, they all turn their back on her, and she realizes once again, that she is alone.
She is grateful that Shannon refutes the detective’s allegations of abuse, but knows the truth. She did, in fact, abuse Henry. Not severely and not often, but it was abuse nonetheless. After “[w]eeks and months of patience, of ignoring negative behaviors and praising positive ones […], fury would rush in, knocking her down and making her desperate for the sweet release that came with grabbing Henry’s soft flesh and squeezing or yelling” (260). In fact, the scratches on Henry’s arm were from Elizabeth, and she had hinted that the cat did it. She had “never actually told Henry to lie. She just pretended” (266).
The detective plays a video of Henry being interviewed about the scratches, and he insists they came from a cat, but what breaks Elizabeth’s heart is Henry’s statement about Elizabeth herself: “My mommy loves be, but I’m annoying, and I make everything hard. My mommy’s life would be better without me. My mommy and daddy would still be married and take vacations around the world. I should never have been born” (266). Elizabeth breaks down, weeping and screaming, “[t]here is no cat. There is no cat” (267).
Chapter 27 Summary: “Matt”
Matt drives to Mary’s house, and finds Pak and Mary in the woods behind their house burning something. Pak tells him that in “Korea, it is tradition to burn childhood items. It is symbolism for becoming adult” (270). Matt knows that Pak is lying, but he is terrified and wants only to get out of there safely. He tells them he came to check on them because they weren’t at the trial, and that Janine is waiting in the car for him and then leaves as quickly as he can.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Teresa”
During the recess, Teresa stays in the courtroom. Young comes in; she has heard about Elizabeth’s breakdown, her seeming confession to abuse and asks Teresa if she thinks Elizabeth deserves to go to jail for the abuse and for saying to Teresa herself that she fantasizes about Henry’s death. Teresa is horrified and realizes there has been a misunderstanding.
During one of the dives, before the fire, Teresa had gone outside to relieve herself, and while there overheard Mary on her cell phone, talking to someone about getting alcohol and stealing her parents’ credit cards. Teresa knows that other parents wouldn’t understand, but she is jealous of Mary’s normal behavior, that “it was the unexpected, unenviable things about others’ lives that got to her most” (277).
When she returns to the chamber, she is clearly upset and she and Elizabeth talk about how difficult it is to be a parent to a special-needs child, and how sometimes they even wonder if their children would be better off dead. Elizabeth reassures Teresa, telling her that everyone has dark thoughts, but “they’re just moments, and they pass. At the end of the day, you love Rosa, I love Henry, and we’ve both sacrificed everything and we’d do anything for them. So if a tiny part of us has these thoughts a tiny part of the time, thoughts we shut out as soon as they creep in, is that so bad? Isn’t that just human?” (281).
While telling this story, Teresa doesn’t tell Young that it was Mary on the phone, she just says she overheard “a teenager at McDonald’s” (281). However, when Young still doesn’t understand how a good parent could have such thoughts about her child, Teresa tells her it was Mary. When Young realizes that Mary was talking about stealing credit cards and having some real estate listings sent to a friend’s house, Young realizes that Pak has again lied to her. Teresa also tells her that whoever called the insurance agency did not have an accent, so that it couldn’t have been Pak.
Part 4, Chapters 26-28 Analysis
Despite the evidence Shannon presents, Elizabeth is not convinced that she did not abuse Henry. She even “felt a pinch of pity for [Shannon], too, for having been so thoroughly duped” (260). However, Kim’s repeated introduction of the idea of competing narratives, and the knowledge the reader has gained about Elizabeth and her parenting makes the reader wonder whether Elizabeth is being too hard on herself. Elizabeth has pinched and scratched Henry; Elizabeth has even yelled at Henry and made him feel small. Certainly, nothing excuses Elizabeth’s behavior, but the reader cannot help but wonder if Elizabeth is understanding her own story incorrectly.
The strain Elizabeth is under is what makes her finally snap, which makes almost everyone believe that she abused Henry. Even Young cannot comprehend this, and she still does not understand how any good mother could believe that her own child might be better off dead, even after Teresa explains the context of the conversation in which Elizabeth had confessed this fantasy.
Once again, this is a matter of culture. Unlike Teresa and Elizabeth, Young does not understand what it is like to have a child who is suffering: “Young didn’t understand that when the months became years, it changed you, that it was different when you had to do everything yourself” (282). Furthermore, Young doesn’t recognize in her own behavior the similarities to Elizabeth, screaming at Mary, for example, that she was “ungrateful and selfish” (238) or essentially abandoning her for almost four years when they first came to America. Once again, Kim expects the reader to look at all sides, even when those sides seem alien and incomprehensible.
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