Everything I Never Told You: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

The summer that Marilyn disappears is the same summer that Lydia falls into the lake. The Lee family never talks about this summer, but they cannot escape its haunting legacy. Every morning while Marilyn is gone, James calls the police to see if he can do anything more to help. However, Officer Fiske gently points out that Marilyn packed suitcases and took her keys, which suggests that she left voluntarily. Because of this, there is little that the police can do. However, James tells his children that the police are looking for Marilyn and that they will find her soon. At school, the other children gossip about Nath and Lydia’s missing mother. Meanwhile, in reality, James knows that Marilyn left voluntarily; he found the scraps of her note in the trash and pieced it back together. He reads it ritualistically several times a day.

When James and Marilyn married, they made a pact to “forget about the past.” Now that Marilyn is gone, James thinks about the past obsessively and is haunted by Doris’ opposition to their marriage. He reads Marilyn’s note again and again, hoping that it will eventually hurt less, though it never does. He lets the children fall asleep in front of the TV before taking them upstairs and returning to sleep in the living room himself. He fails to make the children’s sandwiches the way they like them. The family rarely leaves the house, and one day Nath begs to be taken to the lake. James refuses, saying he doesn’t want to “play lifeguard” to Lydia, who can’t yet swim. Nath angrily pinches Lydia’s arm and calls her a “baby.”

On the way back from a trip to the grocery store, Mrs. Allen waves to James and says she hasn’t seen him in a while. She asks after Marilyn, and James mentions that she is gone “indefinitely.” Inside, Nath asks what indefinitely means, and James urges him to forget what Mrs. Allen said, calling her a “silly woman.” He tells his children that Marilyn’s absence is no one’s fault, especially not theirs. The children know their father is lying. A month passes, and there is still no sign of Marilyn. One day, Nath spots Jack on the street. They haven’t spoken since the incident at the pool, but Nath feels desperately lonely and sits still as Jack walks over. Jack offers Nath candy, reassuring him that he’ll be ok. Jack says that Janet tells him children only need one parent and that if Jack’s dad doesn’t care enough to see him, “it’s his loss, not mine.” Nath, embarrassed and furious, spits out the candy and tells Jack to shut up.

A few days later, Nath is happily distracted by the launch of the Gemini 9. Nath is riveted and obsesses over the news coverage of the launch. He memorizes so many details about space travel that the reality of his own life fades from his mind. One Sunday, Nath asks James excitedly if he can believe that “people can go practically to the moon and still come back” and James slaps him. It is the only time that James ever hits one of his children, and after Nath runs out of the room James kicks the television to the ground. After this incident, Nath becomes even more committed to his passion for outer space.

Lydia, meanwhile, is plagued by torturous nightmares. The only reminder of Marilyn in the house is the Betty Crocker cookbook, which Lydia reads “with the adoration of a devotee touching the Bible.” Two months after Marilyn’s departure, Lydia curls up under the dining table to read the book again. It is the 3rd of July, but Lydia and Nath both know there won’t be any celebrations the next day. Looking at the book, Lydia notices that there are bumps over the pages that must have been caused by teardrops. She suddenly feels a strong sense of guilt for Marilyn’s disappearance, and tells herself that when her mother comes back, she will do everything she asks.

In Toledo, Marilyn is studying in preparation for her Organic Chemistry midterm. To her surprise, the other students at the community college treat Marilyn just like one of them, and she is thrilled by this feeling that she fits in. At the same time, Marilyn is often distracted by intrusive thoughts of her family. She misses them so much that she regularly calls the house, although when James picks up she never says anything. James answers no matter what time it is, and the one time he doesn’t answer Marilyn panics and rings every five minutes until he does. Once, Nath picks up and Marilyn is desperate to speak to him, but she still says nothing. James doesn’t tell the police about these phone calls, and he has been growing increasingly irritated by his suspicion that Officer Fiske thinks it was “only a matter of time” before Marilyn left him. Meanwhile, Marilyn tells herself that her phone calls prove that her family is doing fine without her.

Marilyn feels a great sense of possibility in this moment, and she tries to dismiss thoughts of her family. However, while studying for the midterm she suddenly feels dizzy and faints. At first she thinks she’s caught a bug, and then she realizes that she has not had her period since leaving home. She thinks that she might just be hungry, and goes to the store to pick up some food. While there, she falls to the ground, spilling her groceries and cutting her hand. She then goes to the hospital, where a young blond woman treats her hand. Marilyn asks if the doctor shouldn’t be the one stitching her hand; the woman laughs and explains that she is the doctor. Marilyn is disappointed with her own prejudiced way of thinking. She confesses that she thinks she’s pregnant.

The rest of Marilyn’s time at the hospital passes in a blur. Someone asks for her husband’s number, and Marilyn gives it unthinkingly. Suddenly James is there, holding her hand and telling her that the family has “missed her so much.” Marilyn comes to the realization that her educational dreams are over and that she has no choice but to go home. Furthermore, she knows that once she is home she will not be able to bring herself to leave again. With a heavy sense of defeat, Marilyn tells herself to accept that “this is it.” She leans her head against James and asks him to forgive her. James drives her back to Middlewood, anxiously checking on her throughout the journey.

When they arrive home, Lydia and Nath are at the kitchen table. James announces, “Your mother’s home,” even though the children can plainly see her in front of them. Both the children stare at Marilyn, weeping silently. Marilyn asks them if they have been good. Upon finding out that her mother would be coming home, Lydia decided to hide the Betty Crocker cookbook, and now she tells Marilyn that she “lost it.” Marilyn puts her arm around Lydia, feeling proud of her; she thinks Lydia’s loss of the cookbook is a “sign” that her daughter will reject traditional femininity and she vows to support and encourage Lydia to fulfill her potential. James has ordered pizza, and the family begins to eat. Nath lets out a “deep, contented sigh,” thinking that his mother’s reappearance will mean the return of lavish dinners and hard-boiled eggs for breakfast.

However, Nath was mistaken about the food. Marilyn refuses to cook, buying only pre-prepared food. At the same time, she starts grilling Lydia constantly on math equations, and Lydia starts counting everything: hot dogs, hugs, fireworks. Marilyn buys Lydia a stack of science books, which they enthusiastically read together. Lydia says “yes” to everything Marilyn suggests. Two weeks later, James and Marilyn drive to Toledo to collect Marilyn’s things, leaving the kids with Mrs. Allen. Nath is feeling upset; Marilyn refuses to let him participate in the scientific discussions and games, and she doesn’t seem to care about his interest in outer space. That morning, he’d asked Marilyn for a hard-boiled egg, and to his delight she’d said yes; however, as soon as Lydia came down and started telling Marilyn about her dreams, Marilyn forgot all about the egg. Meanwhile, James still teases him about his obsession with astronauts.

Mrs. Allen falls asleep in front of the TV and Nath heads outside. Lydia asks where he is going, before eventually following him. They walk out to the lake and Nath looks at the houses on the other side of the water, imagining that they are populated with perfect families. Lydia becomes anxious and says they should go home so they don’t get into trouble. Nath feels that everything in his life is “askew,” that it is all now focused on Lydia. He pushes her in the lake. As she disappears under the water, Nath feels completely alone, and in this moment he realizes that it doesn’t matter whether Lydia is physically present or not—his life will still “orbit” around her. As he jumps in to pull her out, he feels a great sense of relief and he realizes that Lydia fell too easily, that there was something about the lake that pulled her towards it. Back on the ground, Lydia vomits up lake water and takes Nath’s hand to pull herself up. They walk back to the house, where Mrs. Allen is still asleep, and they don’t tell anyone about what happened. Nath both pushed Lydia in and pulled her out, and each of their memories will always focus on a different side of the incident.

At Middlewood Elementary’s welcome-back picnic at the beginning of the school year, Nath and James enter the father-son egg race. They are in first place until Nath trips and breaks his egg before the finish line. Nath is relieved when James says it’s ok, but crushed when James then jokes that Nath would have won if only there’d been a reading contest. Nath is increasingly pained by his father’s teasing, and even James realizes that he’s being cruel. James is horrified by the way in which Nath increasingly resembles James as a child, and he cannot stop himself from teasing Nath even though he knows he should. Next, Lydia and Nath enter the three-legged race and they immediately come tumbling down. The handkerchief tying their legs together is too tight, and they cannot match each other’s stride.