Educated: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

That September, the Twin Towers fall in New York—it is the first time Tara has ever heard of them. Three days later, Audrey gets married to Benjamin, a farm boy she met down in town. The wedding is a grim affair—Dad has, in the wake of 9/11, been doing a lot of praying, and believes he has received a “revelation” foretelling “a conflict, a final struggle for the Holy Land.” Tara and the rest of her family spend the fall waiting for some cataclysmic war, or for the end of the world to finally arrive—but by winter, nothing in Idaho has changed.

Tara is fifteen now, and her body is changing. She wants the changes to stop so that she can stay a child, but nothing can stop the forward march of time. After a while, she finds herself both “thrilled and frightened” by the ways she’s developing differently from her brothers.

Shawn and Tara continue spending a lot of time together at rehearsals down in town. When Shawn notices Tara talking to Charles, he reprimands her for being “that kind of girl,” and “just like the rest.” He stops calling her Siddle Lister and starts calling her Fish Eyes—and when she wears lip gloss for the first time, he calls her a whore.

Shawn dumps Sadie and starts seeing an old girlfriend named Erin. When Charles and Sadie start going out, Shawn becomes irate. He takes Tara on a drive through town hunting for Charles—there is a pistol on the seat between them, and all the while, Shawn mutters under his breath about giving Charles “a new face.” Tara is terrified, but cannot reconcile this violent, vengeful version of her brother with the Shawn she once knew.

One morning, Tara wakes up to find Shawn’s hands around her throat. Her brain feels like pins and needles, and she can dimly make out the fact that Shawn is calling her “slut” and “whore” while, in the background, Mother begs Shawn not to “kill” Tara. Mother manages to get Shawn off of Tara and she catches her breath, but seconds later, he has her by the hair and is dragging her through the house while she cries. He throws her onto the floor in the kitchen and screams at her for “pretend[ing] to be saintly and churchish” while secretly “pranc[ing] around with Charles like a prostitute.”

Mother follows them into the kitchen, shouting for Tara to take the car keys and leave. Shawn grabs Tara’s wrist in his special hold, though, and demands she admit she is a whore. Tara is about to give in, when she hears a man’s voice ask what’s going on—she looks up and sees Tyler. She believes at first that her brother is a hallucination, but as Shawn releases her wrist, she realizes he’s real; Tyler has come home for a visit. Tyler gets in Shawn’s face, forcing him to back down, and then tosses Tara his own car keys, urging her to go. Tara runs out to the car and starts it. Tyler follows her and warns her not to go anywhere familiar, or Shawn will find her.

That night, when Tara returns home, Shawn is not in the house. She goes to sleep, but is awoken by the sound of Shawn’s pickup coming up the hill. Shawn enters Tara’s bedroom and calmly sits down on her bed. He hands her a black velvet box with a string of pearls inside, and tenderly tells her how “special” she is—he says he only wants to keep her from going down the wrong “path.” Tara stares at Shawn, who seems in this moment “wise,” and asks him to help her stay on the right path.

The next morning, Tara’s neck is bruised, and her wrist is swollen. She feels as if her brain itself aches. She goes to work but comes home early, and lies down in the basement for some rest and quiet. Tyler comes down to find her, and though she’s embarrassed that he saw her in such a low moment, she feels comforted by his presence. Tyler asks Tara if she’s ever considered leaving home—she tells him she’s planning on going to high school in the fall. Tyler warns her that Dad will make it impossible for her to do so. Tyler tells Tara that home is the “worst possible place” for her, and that she needs to take the ACT and apply straight to BYU. The school takes “homeschoolers,” he says, and he urges Tara to lie and say she has been homeschooled all her life.

The next day, Tara goes to the hardware store and buys a bolt for her bedroom door. She starts installing it, but when Shawn comes down the hall and asks what she’s doing, she is paralyzed by dread. Shawn sees the bolt and helps Tara install it—she realizes in that moment that he hates himself “Far more than [she] ever could.”