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Chapter 24
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Walk Two Moons, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Judgment, Perspective, and Storytelling
Parents, Children, and Growing Up
Grief
Nature
Summary
Analysis
When Sal, Phoebe, and Mary Lou get to the Finneys’ house, it’s in utter chaos. The boys are running everywhere, while Mr. Finney is cooking with four-year-old Tommy’s help. Phoebe whispers that she’s not “optimistic” about this meal. Mrs. Finney comes home at about 6:00 p.m., and the boys argue about who gets to tell her things first. She ignores them and kisses Mr. Finney. Finally, everyone sits down. Phoebe points out to Sal that the plates don’t match. Then, when she sees that they’re having fried chicken, she says she has a sensitive stomach and can’t eat it. She puts two pieces of chicken from Ben’s plate back on the serving dish, insisting there’s cholesterol in the chicken.
What shines through in Sal’s description of the Finney household is how in love with each other Mr. and Mrs. Finney are. It seems like they, rather than their children, are the center of each other’s worlds in the midst of chaos. This is probably unfamiliar for Phoebe—from what Sal has seen, Mr. Winterbottom usually rebuffs Mrs. Winterbottom’s affectionate advances. The entire dinner is upsetting for Phoebe, as being served a meal that’s so different from what her mother would serve makes Mrs. Winterbottom’s absence all the more apparent.
Themes
Phoebe tells Mrs. Finney she can’t eat the chicken, and she insists Mr. Finney shouldn’t either—men have to be careful of cholesterol. As the beans get to Phoebe, Phoebe asks if there’s butter on the them. There is, so Phoebe says she can’t eat the beans—butter has cholesterol in it. Mrs. Finney warns Mr. Finney about the cholesterol, and Sal can tell that she’s not the only one frustrated with Phoebe. Phoebe goes on to refuse the potatoes too, and everyone else stares at their plates.
Phoebe seems to have no idea she’s being rude or that she’s annoying Sal and Mr. And Mrs. Finney. Her refusal to consider that the Finneys’ eating habits are simply different from—not necessarily inferior to—her family’s eating habits reflects Phoebe’s general unwillingness to consider other people’s points of view.
Themes
Finally, Mrs. Finney asks Phoebe what she eats. Phoebe says Mrs. Winterbottom makes low-calorie, cholesterol-free vegetarian meals, and that she’s a great cook. Sal wants to blurt out that Phoebe is acting like this because Mrs. Winterbottom disappeared, but she stays quiet. Phoebe asks for “unadulterated” vegetables or one of her mother’s casseroles. Mrs. Finney finally finds Phoebe muesli with milk. Phoebe usually eats it with yogurt, but the Finneys don’t have any. As Sal eats, she remembers that eating at Gram and Gramps’s house in Bybanks felt a lot like eating at the Finneys’. Maybe Momma wanted a house like this, full of kids and “confusion.”
Phoebe is trying to feel close to Mrs. Winterbottom by insisting on eating something that her mother would make. But Sal is the only person who can truly empathize with Phoebe, because she’s the only one who understands why Phoebe is acting this way. To the Finneys, Phoebe probably just seems entitled and picky. But unlike Phoebe, Sal gains some new perspective from this meal. Although she was upset about having a younger sibling when she first learned that Momma was pregnant, now she seems to understand the appeal of Momma and Dad’s desire for a big family.
Themes
As Sal and Phoebe walk home, Sal asks if everyone seemed quiet after dinner. Phoebe sighs that they were quiet because of “all that cholesterol sitting heavily on their stomachs.” Impulsively, Sal invites Phoebe to spend the weekend with her. Phoebe starts to say something about Mrs. Winterbottom but instead says she’ll ask her dad. The girls find Mr. Winterbottom in the kitchen, washing dishes in a frilly apron. Phoebe critiques his technique. He looks sad, but Phoebe doesn’t notice. Mr. Winterbottom says that he’ll have Mrs. Winterbottom call Phoebe at Sal’s if Mrs. Winterbottom calls over the weekend. That night, Phoebe calls Sal’s house to say that she thinks she caught her father crying—but he never cries.
Finding Mr. Winterbottom in what’s presumably his wife’s apron, washing dishes, shows Sal, at least, how upset Mr. Winterbottom actually is that his wife is gone. But Phoebe is too caught up in her own emotions to notice. Even when confronted with proof that her father was crying, Phoebe isn’t willing to acknowledge that Mr. Winterbottom isn’t as stoic as he seems—perhaps because this would mean that her father isn’t who Phoebe thought he was, just as her mother isn’t who Phoebe thought she was.
Themes
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