We Need to Talk About Kevin: Chapter 24: March 16, 2001 Summary & Analysis

Kevin’s school sends out a memo that a teacher may be acting sexually inappropriate with students. The school is seeking further information, so Franklin and Eva ask Kevin about her. Kevin says the teacher was inappropriate with him, but he will only talk to Franklin about it. Eva doesn’t trust Kevin’s story. Eva goes to Kevin’s school for a meeting with his English teacher, Dana Rocco. Ms. Rocco is interested in Kevin. The teacher can tell that Kevin is smart but that he tries to hide it, and she asks Eva why Kevin is so angry all the time. She says Kevin tries to humiliate her by asking difficult questions in class. Eva tells Ms. Rocco that she’s the only teacher who’s taken special notice of Kevin. Eva, in her letter to Franklin, describes Ms. Rocco as a “slim, attractive woman in her mid-forties.”

The school organizes a meeting to discuss the allegations of sexual behavior against Kevin’s teacher Vicki Pagorski. Kevin speaks to a group of students, teachers, and parents, and tells a detailed account of Ms. Pagorski touching him inappropriately. Eva knows Kevin is lying, but his story is convincing. After Kevin speaks, Lenny takes the stand and recounts a ridiculously over-the-top story about having sex with Ms. Pagorski in her classroom. It’s obvious to everyone that Lenny’s story is a lie. Still, Franklin still believes Kevin’s account. Eva points out that Kevin claimed that the teacher locked the door before touching him but then later contradicted this statement, claiming that he ran out afterward.

Eva and Franklin argue about Kevin just as they have many times before. Eva tells Franklin that the family can’t continue like this and that Kevin has gone too far. She wants to send him to boarding school. Franklin thinks Eva is delusional, or else somehow trying to sabotage the family. Franklin says he wants to separate. Eva wishes desperately that she never had Kevin. She has only ever wanted a loving relationship with a good man. She realizes, though, that Franklin never completely trusted her and that he hasn’t trusted her ever since she started leaving him for long periods at a time to travel. Kevin enters the kitchen—Eva can tell that he overheard the conversation between her and Franklin. He looks different from how he has ever looked before. Looking back, Eva knows that it was that moment that “he decided.”

The school does not fire Ms. Pagorski because there is no evidence that she acted inappropriately, but they do take away her classes so that she can only do administrative work. Kevin acts depressed and tells Franklin that he wants to go on Prozac. Eva observes that Kevin does seem genuinely downcast, but she doesn’t understand why—Kevin has always been trying to come between Eva and Franklin. Eva realizes that the idea of spending the rest of his life with Franklin is horrifying to Kevin.