62 pages • 2 hours read
History of Wolves
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Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
On her way across the lake, Linda slowly realizes that the Gardners’s house is darker than it should be. Without meaning to go there, she arrives at their doorstep, suddenly giddy over the idea of sneaking snacks from their kitchen. Though she’d hoped to be undiscovered, Patra is sitting in the darkened living room, wondering if Linda is there to collect her check from earlier that day; she also wonders, despite herself, if Linda has come across the lake to save them—“to row [them] all away somewhere” (174). Leo is up as well, and Patra turns on the light, making Linda feel exposed.
Leo exclaims that Paul wants breakfast and begins making pancakes, although it is barely past eleven o’clock at night. Leo pays Linda, gently urging her to leave, but Patra clings to her, asking her to stay for breakfast. Patra is dazed, stroking the phone clenched in her hand and asking after Paul who is still in his room. Leo assures her he is fine, comforts her affectionately, and then asserts that they will have breakfast and “start tomorrow early” (177). Patra repeats after Leo and then sets her phone down.
Leo turns every light on in the house as he continues to politely push Linda out. Linda, hungry and feeling compelled to stay, ignores him and sets a plate for herself at the table. Steam fogs up the floor-length windows, obscuring the outside world, as Patra sets about to tidy the house. Patra radiates with energy, moving with a “jerky, outsize exuberance” (179). She suddenly picks up an egg and crushes it in her hand, laughing at her action in confusion. Leo takes Paul’s pancakes to his room, while Linda and Patra sit together. Patra struggles to swallow one bite and then moves to the couch. Linda follows, and Patra tells her about Paul’s birth: about the many complications, how she’d been so sick through the pregnancy, and how she’d felt her heart stop during labor. She admits that, before Paul’s birth, she struggled with Leo’s “way of thinking,” but when Paul was born, she stopped fighting Leo: “going his way seemed easy” (184). Now crying, she asks Linda if they seem happy.
They doze off together on the couch, and Linda dreams that she’s woken up to find Paul outside at the telescope. She’s overwhelmed with relief to see him, and he asks to “play survival together” (185). Paul runs toward the lake, which is caked with early ice despite the warm summer. He slithers out on the ice on his belly, as Linda steps onto it after him. The ice begins to splinter and break beneath her feet just as she realizes she’s dreaming.
She wakes truly and reads Leo’s manuscript. On the first page, Leo describes how Paul has “recently struggled with the belief of a stomachache” (187). When Paul asks what matter is, Leo defines it as a stomachache and all things that lie to the mind about being real. Leo writes that Paul says: “I’m not matter. I don’t lie” (187). However, Patra’s edits reveal that Paul actually said: “I don’t matter” (188). She asks Leo to include anecdotes that demonstrate who Paul is, calling the rest of the text “of course […] very beautiful” (188).
Chapter 14 Summary
In her twenties, Linda writes Mr. Grierson a letter; she tells him that Lily was pregnant the fall after he left—that, though she’d recanted her testimony, the town thought it was his. As Linda describes a program which put Lily through school and helped her with childcare, she says that Lily was never “as dumb as she looked” for escaping “the little life she would have had if they’d made her stay” to marry the baby’s father (191). The letter ends with Linda’s assertion that Mr. Grierson is innocent.
Linda spends the morning next to a sleeping Patra in complete happiness, though she would later wonder why Patra would stay sleeping so long. The trial would villainize Patra for not checking in on Paul. They’d posit that she’d remained with the 15-year-old to establish distance from the situation, to feel less responsible. Or, that Patra was as impressionable as a young teen, that Leo kept her from Paul intentionally. Linda finds truth in both theories, but both theories leave out Patra’s “disorganized but formidable determination” (194) that all she ever needed was approval.
Patra wakes finally and calls Linda Janet—that name Mr. Rochester called Jane Eyre. Patra takes a call from “the practitioner” who urges her to be grateful (197). Leo asks Linda to help him and tells Patra to “go about the morning” (198). Linda is relieved to find Paul sleeping soundly, but notices a nervous energy to Leo, and he keeps glancing at the untouched plate of pancakes. Leo tells her to play Candyland for him while he steps out, but Linda must move the pieces for them both because Paul is still asleep. Having never played before, Linda quickly realizes that it is a race—Paul is losing. She looks up to see Paul watching her with one eye; his breathing pauses, and he spits up before breathing again. She moves Paul to the final space, making him win. When his eye loses focus, Linda runs out of the room.
She first finds Leo, who is too focused on Paul winning Candyland and the idea of him starting kindergarten to listen to Linda. She then finds Patra, who shuffles away from Linda as she approaches. Linda tells her that Paul needs medicine and offers to get it herself when Patra is unresponsive. Impulsively, Linda kisses her, fighting the urge to hurt her. Patra okays the Tylenol and Linda hurries off, scooping up the money Patra had buried under a rock weeks ago.
Chapter 15 Summary
Linda details the passive role she plays in her relationship with Rom, the mechanic; he’d urge her to eat healthily, talk about getting a dog and apartment together, and take her to movies that she’d sleep through. Their first Christmas together, Linda gifts him a dog collar—his face transforming from joy to disappointment as she puts it on herself and strips—and he gives her a pocketknife she already has.
Soon after that, Mr. Grierson replies to Linda’s letter. He tells her that he’s not what she said he is and that some “will defend people like [him] […] because […] they want that so badly for themselves” (211).
On New Year’s Day that following year, Linda and her roommate Ann do laundry together, planning to stop by the luminaries on the way home. Before they reach the rich neighborhood, they pass a shop called “SCIENCE AND HEALTH” (212). Ann, having gone to camp with a few Christian Scientists, speaks with authority about them and their lack of “explanation for the origin of evil” (212). Linda says nothing, thinking that the religion “offers one of the best accounts of the origin of human evil” (213).
Linda remembers Paul’s unique qualities: how he ran in an exaggerated way. Though Linda longed to spend their time outside, he was most content working at a puzzle. This annoyed her initially, but when he settled into her lap, she softened. When she asked if he enjoyed the Nature Center, Paul replied: “That was a great puzzle” (216).
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
The tone darkens further as Linda observes the nearly black house at the beginning of Chapter 13. The chapter works most effectively to elucidate Paul’s peril, Patra’s deteriorating mental state, and Leo’s absolute control. When Patra wonders aloud if Linda has come to rescue them, it indicates her level of awareness of Paul’s situation and her—perhaps subconscious—desire to have an outsider intervene. Linda, however, can only focus on small, practical details, such as correcting Patra’s use of “row” for “paddle” (174). Paul, who is never quite present in this chapter, is still the center of it; Patra’s gaze always lingers toward his room, small cries or whimpers emit from it, and Leo is bubbly and energetic, assuring Paul’s recovery. Leo’s supreme authority in the house is represented in his ability to turn night into day. He busies himself by making breakfast and distracting Patra because it is something productive that he can do that doesn’t involve taking care of his sick son. While Leo turns on all the lights and plays loud music to obscure reality, Patra recoils further into herself.
The tale of Paul’s birth reveals the root of Leo’s control over Patra: she was so happy to see that Leo had been right, that Paul would be fine, that she endeavored to follow Leo’s way of life to assure Paul’s safety. Her unhappiness, and perhaps even regret, is indicated by her asking Linda if they seem happy as tears pour down her face. Linda’s dream about Paul serves as foreshadowing and represents Paul’s death; as he begs to “play survival” (185) and crawls out onto the icy lake, the chapter alludes to Linda’s potential power to prevent Paul’s upcoming death. As the ice cracks beneath both of them, Fridlund emphasizes the fragility of the situation they are in.
Leo’s manuscript reveals his apathetic, intellectual approach to parenting and detached relationship with his son. He manipulates the truth to serve his narrative—Paul’s “I don’t matter” (188) is a pointed truth when it comes to his parents’ neglect—and obscures who Paul really is. Patra’s urging that he use the truth and showcase Paul’s character works to contrast her parenting style, which, at the very least, is wholly involved around appreciating and loving Paul for who he is.
Chapter 14 emphasizes the theme of complicity and guilt, exploring it through both Mr. Grierson and the situation at the Gardners’s. In her letter to Mr. Grierson, Linda reveals her suspicion that Lily used Mr. Grierson’s history of sexual abuse to concoct a story that earned her some degree of freedom. Linda explains that “lots of animals in a trap will play dead” (191), again using nature to interpret the motivations of humans. Linda projects innocence onto Mr. Grierson, despite knowing of his former crimes, perhaps because she wants to see herself as innocent too; she wants to believe that he can be good despite what he’s done so that she can believe the same of herself.
The indirect role Linda plays in Paul’s death—the question of her complicity—becomes the focus of the chapter, as her misgivings begin to take form and she only gently expresses them. Her offer to get medicine is the first step toward meaningful intervention.
The chapter also examines Patra’s role, positioning her in league with the naïve teenager. As the trial later attempts to make sense of Patra and her involvement, Linda’s observation that both the defense and the prosecution are right is overshadowed by her assertion of “Patra’s awareness of her own power” (194); meaning, Patra understood the control she had over Linda, how easy it would have been for Patra to turn to her for help and how her decision to keep her near reveals Patra’s inability to cope with the situation on her own. Patra calls Linda “Janet,” alluding to Jane Eyre and positioning herself as Mr. Rochester, who’s toxic and overwhelming power over Jane is what draws her to him and repels her. This comparison is heightened when Linda kisses her, though the kiss itself is unpassionate and more to get a response from a stunned Patra.
The chapter also uses Candyland to represent Paul’s approaching death. Leo moves the pieces back and forth for an unconscious Paul. As Linda realizes that the game itself is just a race, she also understands that Paul is losing—he’s losing the race for survival. Linda’s impulsive decision to cheat and make Paul win represents her desire for him to live, no matter how. Finally, as Linda meets Leo outside the bathroom, he holds her hands, wetting hers, “like his” (202). This signifies that in drawing Linda into the room and then ignoring her concerns, Leo has put Paul’s blood on Linda’s hands as well, implicating her in his guilt.
Leo’s use of the Candyland Game symbolizes his control over his son’s life. He moves the pieces for Paul, just as he’s made all the decisions for Paul up to this point, including those that would inhibit his health. He orchestrates a losing game for his son just as he orchestrates his son’s death by refusing medical treatment.
Chapter 15 first explains Linda’s emotional unavailability in her adult life, perhaps from the trauma of Paul’s death or from growing up in isolation with emotionally unavailable parents—most likely, though, it derives from both. In her relationship, rather than enjoying emotional security or seeking commitments, she focuses on their sexual relationship, particularly enjoying a submissive role during sex. The knife that Rom gives her, that is “exactly right and totally wrong for” (208) her, represents Rom himself; good and what she needs, but not what she wants.
Mr. Grierson’s letter reiterates the novels contemplation upon guilt and complicity, particularly in his assertion that he is not innocent and his pertinent observation that Linda may be seeking absolution herself. Unlike Mr. Grierson, though, Linda has no one to defend her. The theme of religion appears as Linda and Ann pass by the Christian Science shop. As Linda considers that the religion is the best example of human evil, she reveals the purpose of telling her story—to convey the horrors of her experience with this religion and expose it as the root of evil. The end of the chapter refocuses on Paul as he truly was: inquisitive, playful, and sweet. Linda’s most poignant memory of him is him curled up in her lap, working away at a puzzle. This works to emphasize the innocence and humanity of Paul and to communicate the great injustice of his death; in Linda’s lap, he is so small, so fragile and so alive.
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