An American Marriage: Part 3, Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

Roy reflects on the fact that Davina didn’t insist on wearing a condom. Instead, she opened her home and herself to him. He thinks that if he’d come with condoms, Celestial would have assumed that Roy had been sleeping around, and he storms off to the futon in the sewing room. He is disturbed by all the poupées with his face on them. He can’t sleep and goes to Celestial’s room, but he can’t bear to try the knob in the event she’s locked him out.

Roy goes back to his room and calls Davina. She asks if he’s all right, and he tells her he doesn’t know what to do. She tells him to sleep and asks if Andre and Celestial were together when he arrived, since she once saw them getting drunk at the bar in Eloe together. Celestial had leaned across the bar and told Davina, “I’m a terrible person,” and then she and Andre had left. Roy tells Davina he remembers her son Hopper from prison, and Davina asks if he was doing okay. Roy says he was, and that’s why he didn’t remember him. He thinks, “Only in Atlanta,” when he imagines Andre sleeping at his father’s house and himself surrounded by dolls resembling him.