The Round House: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

When Joe returns home, he and Bazil act like their fight did not happen. Bazil tells Joe that he had an “interesting” conversation with Father Travis, and Joe tenses up, but it turns out Father Travis did not tell Bazil about the boys’ snooping. Bazil has thoroughly dismissed Father Travis as a suspect. Joe asks his father if the police have talked to either Linden or Linda Lark, and Bazil tells Joe that he talked to Linda. Bazil seems troubled as he tells Joe this, because he does not want to involve him, but Joe knows that Bazil needs someone to talk to. Bazil tells Joe he is going to talk to Linda and he asks if Joe wants to come.

When Bazil and Joe meet Linda at the post office where she works, Joe is surprised by how “magnetically ugly” she is. Bazil asks to speak with Linda, and at first she hesitates, but then agrees. The trio walks across the street to a tiny café. At the table, Bazil makes small talk for a while, and then Linda gets up and leaves. Afterward, Joe comments that Bazil did not ask any hard questions. Bazil said he wanted to “get a feel for how she was doing.”

A few days later, Linda arrives at the house, hoping to talk to Geraldine. Joe tells her that Geraldine is sleeping, and Linda waits in the living room for her to wake up. When Geraldine stirs upstairs, Linda walks into her room and Joe hears the muted sound of their voices as they talk. A few days later, Linda shows up again, carrying a small package of banana bread. Linda goes upstairs to talk with Geraldine and, while she is out of earshot, Bazil and Joe hatch a plan to try to gather information from Linda about the Lark family. When Linda comes back downstairs, they offer her ice cream. Linda accepts and they sit down in the kitchen to eat together. Joe asks Linda about her adoption. Although Joe initially only intended to get information, Joe realizes that he is actually very interested in Linda’s response.

Linda launches into her story, which is offset from the rest of the narrative by a title proclaiming “Linda’s Story.” Linda tells Joe and Bazil how she was born after Linden and she struggled to take their first breaths. As the nurse was about to clear out her airway, the doctor pointed out her deformed head and limbs and asked Grace Lark if he should try to save Linda. Grace said no, but the nurse cleared Linda’s mouth anyway, against orders, saving Linda. After it was clear that Linda was going to live, the Larks decided that they would not care for her. The hospital put Linda in the nursery while they tried to figure out what to do with her.

That night, Betty Wishkob, a janitor at the hospital, held Linda, molding her deformed head with her hand as she did so. Betty later asked if she could take Linda home. She raised Linda on the reservation until she was three, when Linda was taken away by social workers. Linda was returned to Betty, then removed again when she was four. Linda was so upset that she screamed until she was brought back to Betty.

Linda describes how her adoptive parents reshaped her malformed limbs and head every night of her childhood—a kind of makeshift physical therapy. Linda remembers her childhood home as untidy but loving. Despite this, though, there were some problems: Linda’s foster father was an alcoholic and Betty had a temper problem. Linda recounts how her sister Sheryl once accidentally broke one of Betty’s beloved vases and blamed Linda for it. Betty began to cry. Linda asked Sheryl why she had blamed Linda, and Sheryl told her it was because Linda was white. Despite this bad childhood experience, Linda and Sheryl became close later on.

After Betty and George Wishkob died, Linda lived in their house alone. One night, Linda received a phone call from Grace Lark. When Grace said her name, Linda immediately hung up. Linda had had no desire to know George and Grace Lark. After Grace called the first time, Linda felt intense resentment toward both Grace and Linden. Four days later, however, Grace called again and told Linda that she had always wanted to meet her. Grace asked Linda if she would like to meet up for dinner, and Linda agreed.

When Linda and Grace sat down to dinner, Grace first expressed shocked that Linda was not mentally disabled because of her birth defect. Grace said that she had wanted to get in touch with Linda before, but she had not been able to find her. The women ordered and ate their entrees. During dessert, Grace started to cry, saying she wished she’d never given Linda up. Linda, trying to distract Grace, asked how Linden was, and Grace explained that Linden needed a kidney transplant and that Linda was his only hope for a donor. Linda immediately got up, threw money on the table, and left. Before she got to her car, Linda threw up in the parking lot. Linda felt someone stroking her back, and it turned out to be Grace, who had followed her out. Linda, knowing that Grace had been lying to her all night, and had always known where she lived, pushed Grace away.

When Linda called Sheryl to tell her about meeting with Grace, Sheryl insisted that Linda not give Linden the kidney, shocked that Linda was even considering it after Grace’s abandonment her. Still, Linda decided to go through with it, traveling to South Dakota for the donation. Linda imagines that Grace may have been a bad mother to Linden because of the shame she harbored after abandoning Linda, and so she felt compassion for him. When Linda’s doctor gave her the test results, she told Linda that she was a match, but also informed her that Linden had several restraining orders against him and he only had kidney failure because he tried to commit suicide with drugs and alcohol. The doctor told Linda to take those things into account.

Later, as Linda sat with Linden in the hospital, Linda asked Linden about his job as a mail carrier, and Linden said that he knew every detail of people’s lives, so he “could have committed the perfect murder.” This comment shocked Linda, who asked if Linden was married to change the subject. Linden told Linda that he had a very young girlfriend, but that a government official was paying her to be with him instead of Linden. Linden then told Linda nonchalantly that he did not want her kidney because he had “an aversion to ugly people” and Linda was “a disgusting woman.” Then, Linden pretended to apologize and started to laugh. Linda left the room.

Linda goes silent, and Joe, struggling to think of what to say, tries to comfort Linda. Bazil asks why Linda still gave Linden her kidney. Linda says that she did it for Grace. After the procedure, Linda got sick with an infection and realized she’d made a mistake giving her kidney. The Chippewa community helped Linda through her illness. Linda was relieved when Grace died and Linden moved back to South Dakota. Linda tells Bazil and Joe that when Linden moved back to South Dakota he “cracked” and “did things... he should have got caught for.”