A Complicated Kindness: Chapter Eighteen Summary & Analysis

Nomi recalls turning 13 three days before Tash and Ian left town. Nomi knew that Ray and Trudie were having tense discussions all the time, but she didn’t really understand their content; she suspected that Tash had begun selling drugs. After one night when Tash stayed out very late, Nomi woke up to find that Trudie had gone to shelve books in the library and Ray had gone for a drive. When Nomi woke Tash up, she cursed until Nomi fled the room, sobbing. Nomi felt sure that Tash was eternally damned.

When Trudie came home, both Nomi and Tash were sobbing in their respective rooms. Nomi heard Tash wailing to Trudie that everything in her life was “a fucking lie” and that the sense of falseness was “killing [her].” Nomi was astonished to hear Trudie agree with Tash and start crying herself. Nomi couldn’t figure out what was killing Tash or why Trudie wasn’t mad. She concluded that Tash was repenting of her drug-pushing lifestyle and was going to come back into the fold.

For a while, Nomi heard Tash and Trudie talking in low voices. Then Trudie went into the kitchen to talk to Ray. When Nomi knocked on Tash’s door, her sister welcomed her uncharacteristically kindly and suggested they listen to a record together. Nomi sobbed that she didn’t want Tash to go to hell, and Tash hugged her and told her that “God is love.” Nomi thought that Tash was “doomed.”

Soon, Ian came to pick Tash up. With a “tender genuine smile,” Tash gave all her records to Nomi. Trudie packed up some blankets and food, and loaded them into Ian’s truck. The scene reminded Nomi of Trudie’s bedtime stories of their Mennonite ancestors fleeing Russia in the middle of the night. Trudie and Nomi hugged Tash and Ian goodbye, but Ray wouldn’t come out of his bedroom.

In the present day, Nomi takes her first birth control pill and lays in bed, feeling anxious about her life. She hears Ray come upstairs and lie down in his own bed. It’s funny that both of them take turns lying awake and bed and sneaking out at night to drive around in the dark. Ray snores horribly loudly, so Nomi goes into his room and pushes him over on his side. She sees the plastic bird sitting on his dresser, and remarks to herself that his graying curtains need to be washed.

Later that night, Nomi sneaks out to go swimming in the pits with Travis. They float on inner tubes and speculate on what it would feel like to go crazy. Nomi thinks it would be “sad and easy…like losing a friend.” Travis responds with a long quote from Kafka, and tells Nomi about his aunt who went insane. They start singing a country song about an old woman stuck in her hometown and obsessed with her former lovers, and Travis says it could be about Nomi. Nomi feels like crying, but Travis has told her “that I was boring when I was offended, and to be boring was the ultimate crime,” so she holds the tears back. She and Travis practice standing up on their inner tubes together.