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83. Outside
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Everything, Everything, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age
Trust and Lies
Family, Abuse, and Bravery
The Value of Experience
Summary
Analysis
Maddy begins a fairy tale by saying that once upon a time, there was a girl whose life was a lie. She says that the universe can blink into existence and then disappear again in an instant. Over the next four days, Maddy does homework and doesn’t read. Mom walks around and seems to understand that she should be sorry for something, but she doesn’t know what. Maddy refuses to talk to her. On the fourth morning, Carla and Maddy have an appointment to see Dr. Chase, a SCID specialist. Maddy asks Carla to stay in the waiting room. Dr. Chase seems nervous and sympathetic as he tells Maddy that she isn’t sick—she shows no signs of SCID, and as a doctor, Mom should’ve known that.
Asking Carla to stay in the waiting room shows that Maddy has truly made the leap from child to adult, especially in terms of her healthcare—she doesn’t need an adult with her to interpret what the doctor says or to lead the appointment for her. Maddy’s willingness to trust Dr. Chase, meanwhile, shows that Mom hasn’t damaged Maddy’s ability to trust other health professionals too badly, as she does take his assessment of her condition seriously.
Themes
Maddy feels the room melt away and then returns to the conversation. She asks why she got sick in Hawaii. Dr. Chase says that healthy people get sick all the time, and he agrees with Dr. Francis that Maddy experienced an episode of myocarditis. He asks if she experienced any chest pain or shortness of breath, and Maddy remembers ignoring pain in her heart. Dr. Chase says that given Maddy’s upbringing, there’s no way to know what her immune system is like, but it’s probably underdeveloped. It hasn’t experienced a lifetime of practicing fighting infections. He’s never encountered someone like Maddy, but this might mean that she’ll get sick more often or get more severely sick. They schedule weekly visits and Dr. Chase cautions Maddy to take things slowly—the world isn’t going anywhere.
Here, Dr. Chase reveals the true cost of Mom’s attempts to protect Maddy: Maddy’s immune system is unable to protect her in the world exactly because Mom tried to keep Maddy from experiencing anything that might make her ill. In this way, Mom made Maddy less safe and gave her absolutely no way to protect herself, as this kind of immunity can’t arise overnight—it’s something that Maddy is going to have to carefully cultivate in the months and years to come.
Themes
