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Chapter 21. The After
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Monday’s Not Coming, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Child Abuse
Family, Community, and Responsibility
Growing Up, Independence, and Friendship
Secrecy and Shame
Poverty, Social Support, and Desperation
Memory, Repression, and Trauma
Summary
Analysis
It’s obvious to everyone in the school when a student is heading for the Learning Center, also called the TLC. Claudia takes a circuitous route so people won’t know she receives tutoring. At the TLC, there are teachers to help kids with homework, and twice a week a teacher observes Claudia’s classes. Claudia tries to keep her resentment to herself and thinks that if Monday came back, they could work on their essay without the TLC’s help. Claudia has to find Monday.
Claudia doesn’t yet see the value in being able to independently work on her Banneker essay. It’s more important to her to be able to retreat to her comfort zone, where Monday propped her up by helping her with (or by doing) her homework and where her dyslexia was a carefully kept secret.
Themes
Claudia’s route from the TLC is so long that she’s going to be late for class. As she runs up the stairs, she slams into Ms. Valente and scatters the teacher’s papers. Claudia helps Ms. Valente gather the papers and, with prodding, admits that she just came from the TLC. Ms. Valente says she knows Claudia is getting help, since the school sent a memo to teachers last week. Claudia is beside herself. She doesn’t want other kids seeing the memo and knowing she’s stupid. Claudia collapses on the stairs and struggles to breathe. Ms. Valente rubs Claudia’s back as Claudia sobs. How is Monday able to breathe without her?
Sending out the memo to teachers suggests that the school wants teachers to be able to support students. When teachers know that certain students are getting extra help and why, they are better equipped to work with those kids and meet their needs. But because Claudia feels so ashamed of her dyslexia, the memo is just more proof that everyone knows she’s “stupid.” Asking how Monday can breathe without her speaks to how alone and upset Claudia is—she can barely breathe without her best friend.
Themes
Ms. Valente says that Claudia needs to talk to someone and starts asking questions. Claudia explains she’s taking this route because she doesn’t want kids to know she’s “in the stupid kids’ class.” Ms. Valente says that there aren’t any stupid kids in the TLC; the kids who insist there are just aren’t brave enough to ask for help. When Claudia insists she doesn’t need help, Ms. Valente says she failed Claudia. She suspected last year that Claudia had a problem, which is why she worked with Claudia one on one. But she was too busy with everything else to act on it.
Though Ms. Valente doesn’t contradict Claudia outright on her insistence that Claudia doesn’t need help, she implies that it would’ve been better had Claudia’s dyslexia been identified last year. In addition to giving Claudia another year to learn strategies for reading, an earlier diagnosis would’ve allowed her some independence from Monday, since Claudia wouldn’t have been so dependent on Monday when it came to homework.
Themes
Claudia says that Ms. Valente thinks she’s dumb too—and besides this, everyone thinks Claudia is a lesbian. Ms. Valente grabs Claudia and tells her that she’s letting rumors run her life, that being a lesbian is fine, and that Claudia cares too much about what other kids think. She takes a breath and tells Claudia that she just learns differently. If Ms. Valente had said something sooner, Claudia might not be in so much pain now. She laments that when she brought it up with the administration last year, no one would listen. The school only cares about rankings and doesn’t encourage teachers to get to know the students.
Ms. Valente stresses that Claudia is so caught up in what other people think of her that she’s unable to see that her differences aren’t the end of the world. She also explains why the school didn’t identify Claudia’s dyslexia sooner: the school, like Claudia herself, is too caught up in looking successful and prestigious to actually care about its students. There are consequences, this shows, to not doing what’s best for the students.
Themes
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Claudia insists that there’s nothing wrong with her; she just has a lot in her mind with Monday gone. Ms. Valente is shocked that Claudia hasn’t heard or seen from Monday at all and has news to share. She says that Mrs. Charles pulled Monday out of school to homeschool. When Claudia spits that Monday isn’t even home, Ms. Valente says that Monday is home—a social worker saw her. Claudia thinks that Monday would’ve called her if she was actually home—right?
It becomes even more confusing for Claudia when she learns that Monday is supposedly home. But the way that Ms. Valente frames it suggests that the adults involved know better than Claudia does.
Themes
After school, Claudia stops at the police station near Monday’s house. Nobody else will help her, and the social worker’s story seems fishy. The police seem like the only option. Claudia puts on her best adult voice and tells the man at the desk that she’s here to request an officer check in on a friend who’s in trouble. The man asks if the friend is missing, and the word seems to pulse in Claudia’s mind. Claudia says she’s not missing like that.
Claudia has been raised to think that the police are helpful when people are in trouble, which is why she involves the police once the school has disappointed her. It’s uncomfortable for Claudia to consider that Monday might be missing, as in dead or kidnapped. And because that’s so uncomfortable, she’s unwilling to even consider the possibility.
Themes
At that moment, a tall man steps up, introduces himself as Detective Carson, and takes Claudia to his office. Claudia tells him everything. After a few questions, Detective Carson asks if Mrs. Charles has filed a missing person’s report. Claudia says she’s “not that type of mom.” She insists Monday wasn’t having trouble at home, and recoils when Detective Carson asks if Monday might’ve run away.
Detective Carson explains the protocol when a child is missing. In his mind, if that protocol isn’t followed, the alternative is that the child in question probably just didn’t want to live at home anymore and chose to run away. With this, the novel exposes a major flaw in the system, begging the question of what happens to children in danger whose parents are, as Claudia says, “not that type” of parent.
Themes
Detective Carson takes Claudia to a bulletin board covered in missing persons flyers. The missing people are all girls who look like Monday, but Monday isn’t on the board. Detective Carson says that most girls reported missing just ran away. He tells Claudia that by coming in here and asking officers to care about Monday, it takes their focus away from other girls who need their help. He says that if Monday is missing, a parent can file a report. Claudia holds back tears. She’s the only one looking for Monday.
Seeing this bulletin board suggests that Monday is not the only one in her situation—lots of young Black girls are missing, in danger, and/or suffering from abuse. And to Detective Carson, it’s not worth it to care about girls who may have run away, or those with parents unwilling or unable to file a report. But as the novel shows through Monday, this attitude leaves many kids in potentially dangerous situations.
Themes
Later, Claudia sits in the living room as Ma hangs ornaments on their Christmas tree. She grouses that Daddy always gets a huge tree and then never helps decorate it. Claudia pulls ornaments out of boxes and hands them to Ma on the stepladder. Monday used to help them decorate. Claudia wonders if Monday is really missing. She has to be home.
Monday was such an important part of Claudia’s life that it’s painful to be doing these things without her. This reflects how uncomfortably alone Claudia feels, since Monday’s absence seems to poison this decorating session.
Themes
Claudia asks Ma if she can be homeschooled. Ma is shocked and says it’s out of the question—even if Monday is homeschooling. Claudia slumps down and looks into the ornament box. There are only four left: the prettiest ones, but the ones “with the ugliest history.” Claudia tries to ignore the ornaments and wonders if she should break them this year. She knows Ma wouldn’t forgive her if she did.
Being homeschooled would perhaps allow Claudia to feel like she’s following in Monday’s footsteps, thereby helping her feel connected to her friend. Mentioning these four ornaments in this way suggests that Claudia doesn’t want to remember whatever these ornaments commemorate.
Themes
Ma tries to brighten the mood by asking where Claudia’s Christmas list is. Claudia doesn’t want anything but Monday. Ma asks for the next ornament, but gasps when Claudia says there are only four left. With a sigh, Claudia takes out the last four crystal angels. They’re “for the four angels we lost.” Ma hangs the ornaments and then goes to bed, tears in her eyes. Claudia leaves the mess for Daddy to clean up.
Here, the novel reveals that the ornaments are for four babies that Ma lost from miscarriages. This ties back to how Claudia described Ma as being pink unless she doesn’t get what she needs—then she turns white. Ma seems to have wanted another baby, and she may still be grieving these babies’ losses.
Themes
