Revolutionary Road: Part 3, Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

April watches Frank leave, waving and smiling goodbye to him. She goes back in the kitchen and is still smiling when she sees the diagram he drew on the table. She begins to cry, but steadies herself as she washes the dishes. She calls Milly and asks her to keep the kids, saying she still doesn’t feel well. April tells Milly that Frank may come pick them up later, but that they should keep it open-ended, and says to kiss the kids for her and tell them she loves them. After she gets off the phone, April tries to smoke a cigarette to steady herself, then vomits. She remembers her Aunt Claire telling her never to do anything until she had “thought it through” and then to do her best.

April goes to the wastebasket and takes out crumpled letters she tried to write Frank the night before. They are full of blame and hate. She had tried to write until five in the morning, then had given up and taken a long hot bath. Coming into their bedroom to get dressed, she had seen Frank lying on the bed, looking ill. She felt shocked to realize that not only did she not love him, she also didn’t hate him. She soothed him and told him to sleep, then she “thought it through. “

April feels that it was not dishonest or wrong to treat Frank kindly this morning—the thing she had done wrong was long before, when she had taken Frank seriously. She had let herself go down a path that led her to where she is now, saying the opposite of what she means. She feels she has been living her life the way the Laurel Players act, or Steve Kovick drums: “earnest and sloppy and full of pretension and all wrong.” April straightens the desk, makes Frank’s bed, then brings the wastebasket of letters outside to burn them. She can hear children’s voices mixed in with the birdsong, but cannot discern Jennifer and Michael’s voices.

April plunges into a memory from her childhood. She is trying to tell the neighborhood children about the beautiful gifts April’s mother brought her during a visit. Her friend Margie Rothenberg will not listen and asks why April’s mother only stayed for two days instead of a week, as April had said she would. April invites Margie over, but Margie says she must go home to listen to Don Winslow. April hears her Aunt Claire call to her. Aunt Claire says that April’s father is on his way up to Boston and will stop to visit her in fifteen minutes. April dresses in a frenzy, peppering her aunt with questions about how long her father will stay.

April watches for her father’s car. As he gets out of the car, she admires his tall figure, then runs to hug him, taking in his smell and voice. He tells her how much she has grown. She tries to take in every detail about him and laughs at the jokes he tells Aunt Claire, even though she doesn’t understand them. After a short visit, her father gets up to leave. April gets upset, saying he has only stayed for an hour and didn’t even bring her a present. Her father brings her out to his car and looks through his belongings to find a present for her. He finds a bottle of White Horse whisky and cuts a tiny charm in the shape of a white horse from the neck of the bottle. He gives it to her, saying she can keep it forever.

Back in the present, April has finished burning the letters. She goes back inside, where she can no longer hear the children’s voices. She writes Frank a simple letter. It reads, “Dear Frank, Whatever happens please don’t blame yourself.” She almost signs it “Love, April” but stops herself and just writes “April.” In the kitchen, she fills a large stewing pot with water and sets it to boil. She puts tongs and the two parts of the rubber syringe into the boiling water. She then puts a pile of towels in the bathroom, writes the phone number for the hospital down, and props it up next to the telephone. April watches the syringe move in the boiling water, waiting to turn off the heat and let it cool. In her head, she again hears her Aunt Claire warning her to think it through, but she feels sure that she needs no further advice. She thinks that all truly honest actions must be taken alone.