Chapter 70: Hilly’s Confession and the Weight of the Past
Spoiler warning: Contains full plot details of Chapter 70. Read the book first for the intended experience.
Summary
Late that night, Desiree DuBose retreats to the bedroom that once belonged to Lucy Lee. Queenie sleeps on a blanket while DuBose unwinds, wrapping her hair and idly examining Lucy’s childhood keepsakes: stuffed animals, a book of toads, a pink dress, and a Mickey Mouse figurine. She picks up an empty Coca‑Cola bottle holding a floppy artificial sunflower and studies a family photograph on the wall—a younger Jack and his brother flanking their sister, with Hilly and Frank Lee looking happy and unaware of future grief.
Sitting on the bed, DuBose confronts her own mortality and the endless treadmill of a life devoted to justice. She stares into the mirror, calculating the swift approach of forty, then fifty, then sixty, and wonders what comes after if she isn’t killed first. No answer comes.
A knock interrupts her thoughts. Hilly enters, clad in a long blue robe, and sits beside the bed. She remarks on the painful memories in the room, then picks up the Coca‑Cola bottle and reveals that it held Lucy’s first soda and that Jack won the sunflower for his sister at a fair. After a beat, Hilly admits the white‑robed judge is playing a slick game and offers to help DuBose outsmart him.
The conversation pivots dramatically when Hilly raises the name Joshua Taylor. She confesses she wanted to marry him—a secret she has never told anyone, not even her husband Francis. She produces a small photograph showing a youthful Hilly in a homemade dress and a tall, handsome Black man, his arm around her waist, both beaming. She explains that the photo was taken on the night of her high school dance; the couple could not attend together, so they held their own celebration by the McClure River. Marriage between a white woman and a Black man was illegal everywhere, but Hilly did not care about the law.
She describes begging Joshua not to go away to college and to take her with him, but he left anyway. After a year without word, she moved to Richmond, eventually meeting Francis and marrying. DuBose asks if she truly loved Joshua. Hilly replies that it was more than love: she felt she could not exist without him, could not breathe, had no purpose. That depth of connection made his departure devastating.
Hilly then reveals a more painful layer she withheld earlier. After leaving home, she wrote to Joshua’s mother every week, but the replies were sparse. She came to understand that his mother feared the hatred and danger that an interracial relationship would bring. The woman told Hilly to her face that she would ruin her son’s life and condemn him to death. Hilly felt she had run into an immovable wall; for the first time, she could not find a way through. Her anger curdled into a helpless acceptance of what others said her life should be—the easy path of following rather than thinking.
She recounts how, struggling with the guilt over Lucy’s condition, she eventually sought counsel from a preacher. He declared that God made Lucy the way she was as punishment for Hilly’s love of a “colored” man. For years she believed him, until her own faith told her otherwise: God does not judge creation by color; God knows only love. Hilly derides the twisted theology that tries to have it both ways. She then smiles at the irony of the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, which legalized interracial marriage—the white plaintiff’s surname being Loving itself. Before leaving, she tells DuBose that she and Jack give her hope, then exits.
Alone, DuBose sits in the bed and reminds herself that when fighting for the rights of millions, you must never forget that the millions are made up of single individuals—like Jerome, Pearl, and Hilly Lee.
Key Events
- DuBose explores Lucy’s room and wrestles privately with the personal cost of a lifelong quest for justice.
- Hilly visits and alludes to the judge’s manipulative courtroom behavior, vowing to help DuBose.
- Hilly voluntarily shares her decades‑old secret love for Joshua Taylor, a Black man, showing a photo as proof.
- She details the couple’s joyful but clandestine high‑school‑era romance, the forced separation when Joshua left for college, and her eventual loveless compliance.
- Hilly discloses the rejection she faced from Joshua’s mother and the preacher who weaponized Lucy’s disability to condemn her.
- She renounces that condemnation and finds solace in the irony of the Loving decision.
- DuBose ends the chapter by internalizing that the legal battle is fought for real, wounded people like Hilly.
Character Development
- Desiree DuBose: The chapter peels back DuBose’s anxious inner life. Her glance in the mirror reveals exhaustion with the endless fight and fear of growing old without purpose beyond the courtroom. Hilly’s confession re‑centers her: she recognizes that the abstract “cause” she serves is sustained by individual hearts.
- Hilly Lee: Previously seen as a guarded, grieving mother, Hilly now emerges as a woman of immense buried pain. Her narrative of loving Joshua Taylor exposes the ways systemic racism forced her to abandon her deepest self. The encounter with the preacher shows how religious authority intensified her guilt. Yet she reclaims a degree of peace by rejecting that toxic theology. Her final remark about hope signals that she is not broken—only waiting for an opportunity to believe again.
- Joshua Taylor (off‑page): Constructed entirely through memory, Joshua represents both the dream Hilly lost and the ordinary cruelty of a society that would kill a man for love. His absence is the pivot on which Hilly’s personality turned.
- Jack Lee (referenced tangentially): Mentioned only as Hilly’s son and as a contestant at the fair, but his role as a source of hope for Hilly underscores the generational weight the case carries.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs Evidenced Here
- The Coca‑Cola bottle and sunflower: The mundane object becomes a relic of Lucy’s first small joy and Jack’s brotherly affection. When Hilly picks it up, it bridges present pain and a time when the Lee children were innocent, emphasizing how much the family has lost.
- Forbidden interracial love: Hilly’s entire confession illustrates the violent legal and social architecture that criminalized Black‑white relationships. The chapter shows that the harm went far beyond the couple; it poisoned family relations, warped faith, and forced people like Hilly to become a paler version of themselves.
- Guilt and religious condemnation: The preacher’s assertion that Lucy’s disability was divine punishment for Hilly’s “sin” captures how bigotry infiltrated the church. Hilly’s eventual rejection of that doctrine is a quiet but crucial act of spiritual defiance.
- Hope as resistance: Hilly calls DuBose and Jack “hope,” transforming a feeling into a tangible force. The chapter argues that hope is not naive optimism but a way of seeing the humanity in others despite overwhelming odds.
- The individual versus the collective: DuBose’s closing thought—never forget that the millions are made up of single people—distills a central motif of the novel. Legal precedent matters, but the trial is ultimately about Pearl, Jerome, Lucy, and Hilly.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 70 acts as the emotional hinge of the narrative’s second half. By placing Hilly’s secret at the center, Baldacci ensures that the reader understands the case is not merely a courtroom chess match. The confession retroactively explains Hilly’s guardedness, her fierce protection of her remaining children, and the bitterness she has carried. It also fortifies DuBose’s resolve: seeing the personal wreckage caused by the very system she battles reignites her purpose. Without this quiet, intimate exchange, the stakes of the trial would remain abstract. With it, every legal maneuver is charged with the memory of a love that could not survive.
Study Questions and Answers
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Why does Hilly choose this particular moment to tell DuBose about Joshua Taylor? Hilly recognizes that DuBose needs to understand her fully if they are to work together against the judge. The secret is not a guilt‑ridden confession but a deliberate act of trust; by exposing her own wounds, Hilly signals that she is prepared to be an ally beyond mere hospitality. It also answers the unspoken question of why a white mountain woman would so aggressively support a Black attorney defending a Black man.
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How does the preacher’s explanation of Lucy’s condition connect to the novel’s larger critique of institutional racism? The preacher weaponizes theology to enforce racial hierarchy. By claiming Lucy’s disability was God’s punishment for Hilly’s interracial love, he transformed a social prejudice into divine law. This mirror’s the courtroom logic used by the prosecution: both systems disguise hatred as moral order. Hilly’s eventual rejection of that logic aligns her with the defense’s broader argument that the law can be twisted to serve bigotry.
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What is the significance of DuBose’s internal monologue about aging and her life’s work? DuBose’s moment of vulnerability—wondering if her shoulders are wide enough, if she can keep sacrificing her finite time—humanizes a character who is otherwise portrayed as relentlessly competent. It shows that even the most dedicated advocate can feel depleted. The quiet mirror scene crystallizes the personal cost of fighting systemic evil and underscores why Hilly’s gift of hope is so necessary.