Educated: Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis

After “Y2K” fails to bring about the end of the world, Dad slips into a deep depression, and Mother decides that it’s time for another trip to Arizona. Tara, Richard, Audrey, Mother, and Dad pile into an old van Dad has “fixed up” so that the back seats have been replaced with a queen mattress. In Arizona, the sun improves Dad’s mood just as it did the last time—but just like the last time, Dad argues nonstop with Grandma-down-the-hill, who is receiving cancer treatment at a local hospital.

One afternoon, Audrey tells Tara to pack her things—they’re all leaving right away. Grandma-down-the-hill urges Dad to stay the night rather than driving through the approaching storm and risking an accident, like last time, but Dad ignores his mother and makes everyone load up the van. In the middle of the night, a blizzard descends, and Richard, who has been driving, pulls over. Dad takes the wheel and begins speeding towards home. The drive becomes so erratic and so dangerous that it is a “relief” to Tara when the van finally and inevitably skids off the road.

Several days after the accident, Tara’s neck freezes up. She wakes one morning unable to move it, and feels herself slowly become overtaken by a terrible headache. Rather than taking Tara to a doctor, Mother calls over one of her friends, another “energy specialist,” who attempts to heal Tara by urging her to imagine herself in a “white bubble” full of pleasant things. A month goes by, and though Tara’s pain does not abate, she gets used to moving through the world with a stiff neck and debilitating migraines. She soon takes to bed, and experiences the world around her through a dull haze.

Sometime during Tara’s month in bed, her brother Shawn returns home. He has been living away from home and earning himself a bad reputation in town. Tara, who hasn’t seen her brother in a long time, sees him “as more legend than flesh.” One evening, Tara goes into the kitchen to help with dinner. Shawn tells her she should see a chiropractor, but she ignores him. While Tara is at the stove with her back towards Shawn, he comes up behind her, grabs her skull, and jerks her head “with a swift, savage motion.” Tara blacks out from the pain, but when she comes to, she is able to move her neck without any trouble. Tara begins seeing Shawn, in the wake of this “violent, compassionate act” as the “defender” she’s longed for all her childhood.