The First Stone

“Maybe they were wrong. Maybe there was plenty she had to prove. Like there was a reason why she was still living and breathing when her older sister, Ellen, had stopped doing both six months ago.”

Leeza thinks about why she chose to work at Silver Meadows instead of in easier places like most of her classmates. Ellen is a huge reason. She is trying to prove, among other things, that she can provide comfort to people. She may be able to improve their lives at the end, which is something she didn’t have the time to do with Ellen.

“Just because they don’t fit with the others don’t make ‘em less important.”

Nan tells Reef that the rocks that don’t fit into other categories are special, like him. He is as important as anyone else, even though he doesn’t fit neatly into a category. The quote shows that she intended to be an effective, nurturing mentor and was capable of it. Tragically, her influence was short-lived, given her untimely death.

“It was the price you paid for living with a foster family like the Barkers. You were just two ears on a body, ears that had to listen to every complaint and criticism and rant they threw your way.”

Reef listens to Karl Barker tell him he needs to think about what he’s done to Leeza. Reef is obviously used to the drill and impatient for it to end. He describes the Barkers, as well as himself, as mere dehumanized collections of body parts. Given this perspective, it’s not hard to imagine why Reef has such a paltry sense of self-worth.

“When you came down to it, that really was all people were. Mouths. Endlessly talking mouths. People didn’t even need ears any more. His mother had actually been an improvement to the basic design. Too bad she never knew.”

Reef has a lot of time to contemplate while Karl lectures him. He doesn’t think about people in terms of their personalities or qualities. Reef thinks of people as inconveniences, and one of the biggest inconveniences about other people is having to listen to them. This quote also extends his habit of using dehumanizing language to describe people he doesn’t like, including himself.

“Then there was Life Lesson Number Two: Shit happens. Looking at Judge Thomas, Reef was reminded that it’s a whole lot better being the shitter than the shittee. Something else his grandfather used to say.”

Reef is a product of his upbringing. His grandfather was a cruel, coarse man who took out his anger on Reef, among others. Reef would rather be the one making someone else suffer than to suffer himself. His worldview doesn’t accommodate a reality where people don’t hurt each other because he has never known anything else.

“‘Anybody die?’

‘Just me.’”

After Leeza and Brett meet, Brett asks her about the car accident. When she asks if someone died, Leeza’s answer illustrates her pain and state of mind. She felt her life had almost ended after her sister’s death, and this new agony arrived before she could heal from that loss.

“Gifts come in many forms…Your being sent here was a kind of gift, Reef. The judge could have put you some place far worse than North Hills.”

Frank tells Reef that he is lucky for Judge Thomas’s leniency. There are many types of gifts, just as there are many forms of generosity. Reef thinks that Frank is just another naïve do-gooder, but Frank speaks from experience. If he had found himself in a place like North Hills in his youth, perhaps it would have been the gift that could have kept him out of prison.

“Here you’ll learn you have to look beyond yourself. There’s a whole world out there that needs taking care of.”

Frank responds to Reef’s bluster about taking care of himself with the hope that he will learn how to take care of others. Many of the people in the home are only better because they were former hard cases who softened. Over the course of the novel, Frank’s insight is more prescient. Not only does Reef learn to care for others, but he also begins to see it as a duty.

“Surprises have a way of becoming setbacks.”

Val tells Leeza about her upcoming treatment because she doesn’t want it to take her by surprise. It’s going to be grueling and will seem slow at times. She also tells Leeza’s mother that they will do better in the early stages without her since it’s going to be difficult. Most of the surprises in the novel are tragic and violent, and thus setbacks, so Val is speaking to a greater truth.

“We all need routines. Most human beings can’t handle a life in flux. We’d go crazy if there weren’t constants we could depend on. We instinctively look for patterns, and when we don’t find them, we create our own. It’s our innate need for security, for normalcy.”

Frank tells Reef to drop the tough guy act and accept that he needs a routine, no matter how much he protests about living in the now. A person without a routine is a person who never feels safe and never wants to stop moving. Without a routine, people also tend to live on autopilot, defaulting to whatever they are accustomed to. In Reef’s case, this means an endless series of self-sabotages.

“You’ll heal faster. But for your people, injuries like yours seem more traumatic and long lasting than they would for an older person. The advantage of age is that older people have been through so much more in their lives. They realize that, although this is terrible, it’s not as devastating as this thing that happened ten years ago or that thing that happened twenty years ago.”

Dr. Dan tells Leeza that her youth is a double-edged sword. She has a greater ability to heal, given her young age. However, she may suffer more than an older person because this is the first time she’s experienced this type of pain. She hasn’t lived enough to see that pain comes throughout life, and one has to learn that it always passes.

“His mind did a sudden flash-forward: they, too, would be old one day. It was the first time he’d ever been conscious of his friends’—and, therefore his own—mortality. It was suddenly sobering.”

When Reef sees his friends get out of Greg’s car, their knees ache. He is suddenly thinking about their future. Reef has always prided himself on living in the moment. This glimpse into his future is positive. It shows empathy, but it also shows that he can conceive of himself—and them—having a future.

“She did something to him. Made him want to be better somehow. Made him think, maybe, that he was better. Better than he’d been, anyway.”

After their first few conversations, Reef realizes the effect Leeza has on him. She elevates him to a standard he could not have found by himself. For the first time, Reef is thinking hopefully and optimistically. He has something to look forward to besides partying and causing trouble.

“He thought about words. Thought about which ones got said and which ones didn’t. Like the words he wished he’d said to his grandfather. All those times he’d bitten them back. He’d told Alex some of those words the night before. He hadn’t planned to. They’d just come. And Alex had told him some of his own words…words his own father had used against him.”

Reef is instantly desperate for payback against Rowdy when he sees Jink’s broken body. However, he thinks about Alex and him sharing a moment of vulnerability the night before. Alex tried to kill himself after his father’s anti-gay shaming. Reef is suddenly able to place a moment to breathe and think in between the impulse of his anger and the potential violence of his actions.

“I put her in that place. Me. Like Rowdy did to Jink. Except Rowdy used his hands. Looked Jink in the face while he did it.”

Reef tells the group about the confrontation with Leeza’s mother. It took Jink’s beating to help Reef see the consequences of what it means to hurt someone. He knows that he didn’t mean to hurt Leeza, unlike Rowdy’s savage, calculated assault on his friend. Nevertheless, the result is the same for the victim. Reef is now in a position to appreciate the judge’s ruling.

“Most of the things I regret in my life I did because I was afraid. I used to think it was because I was angry. Anger is a hard thing to deal with. But I think fear is harder. It makes you feel more alone.”

Reef tells a classroom about his reflections on rehabilitation. He is a few years older than the kids he is speaking to. He wants them to know that if they are afraid, they should get help and talk to someone—even if it is him—before the anger turns into something they can’t control and before it makes them do something they can’t take back.

“I learn somethin’ new every time.”

In one of his class presentations, a student asks Reef if he ever learns anything from speaking to groups. Reef’s response that he learns something every time is insightful. He continues to present because he believes he might help people like him improve their lives if they can hear his story in time. He also acknowledges that learning is valuable, and if he continues to tell his story, he will continue to learn about himself.

“She had no idea just what to expect any more. She’d learned you couldn’t really depend on anything. Or anyone.”

The day that Leeza has her fixators removed is meant to be happy, but it is a dark day after her mother kicks Reef out of her room. Just as he is becoming surer of himself, Leeza is going in the other direction. She is thinking in absolutes, and all of her thoughts are negative. Her support system is still in place, but she can’t feel it in a meaningful way.

“Perhaps there were things you could depend on after all. Death and decay. And disappointment.”

After Reef leaves Leeza’s room for what may be the last time, she returns to her former state of disillusionment. Reef’s positive influence on her recovery was obvious, both to the reader and to her caregivers. However, it is not until his absence returns her to a profound state of despair that the depths of his positive influence are clear.

“The guy who did that isn’t the guy who’s here now. A person can change.”

Reef apologizes to Leeza in her hospital room. By admitting that he has changed, he also shows his awareness that his former identity was undesirable, anti-social, and, most importantly, in need of change. He knows that he is a different person. On the other hand, he is also painfully aware that his actions may change Leeza for the worst, particularly if she can’t see him anymore, after they have grown so close. At this point, his recovery is further along than hers.

“I don’t care what he thought or didn’t think. I’ll see him in jail before I see him anywhere near Leeza again.”

Brett tells Diane that Reef just wanted to apologize to Leeza, but Diane doesn’t care. Her mind and heart are closed to the idea of him being near Leeza. She can’t conceive of a situation where he can cause her anything but further harm. Diane wants Reef to suffer at least as long and as much as he has caused her daughter to suffer, which aligns with her view of justice.

“That boy had never known his father, a boy not much older than himself who had gotten a deaf girl pregnant and then run off. Nor had that person known his mother, whose world of silence had kept her prisoner within herself until the boy’s attentions had drawn her out and then betrayed her. She’d wasted away, barely pushing the scrawny baby out of her body before leaving it herself.”

Brett tells Leeza what she has learned about Reef’s past. She does not excuse his actions, but she also refuses to ignore the good that Reef has done for Leeza. Against the odds, he has made himself a better person, and she wants Leeza to know that she has helped Reef evolve. Brett is insightful enough to know that Leeza and Reef will both hinder their respective recoveries if they lose each other.

“Shit didn’t just happen. He knew that now. Shit got made. And the worst shit is the shit we make for ourselves.”

As Reef looks at the protective chain link now installed on the overpass, he takes full accountability for his actions. He was not to blame for his upbringing, but he does have to suffer the consequences of his actions. The worst things that have happened to him—and that he has done to others—were his choices.