Chapter 13 Summary: Daddy Issues

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens with Fran waking early in the Screw bunker. She eats a hearty breakfast in the refectory—browned onions, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, and buttered brown bread—and watches iridescent fish in an aquarium before retrieving her bathing suit from her room while Robbie sleeps curled on his cot. At the pool, she swims laps, and the physical sensation triggers vivid memories of swim meets at the Concord YMCA: locker rooms full of shoving boys, the tight Speedo, the feeling of climbing onto diving blocks under parents' collective gaze. The memory passes, and she feels a profound sense of relief, thinking she never has to run again.

Meanwhile, Indi is disinfecting the lab with Mariana, an Ecuadorean woman from the refugee camp whom Indi suspects was an orthopedic specialist. Corinne Slate, one of the twin administrators of the Screw, pressures Indi about why the fertility work hasn't begun. Indi explains the technical problem: semen from an infected man produces XY babies that undergo viral metamorphosis in utero and kill the mother, so she needs to ensure any pregnancy is XX. She requests specialty equipment, a chemist, and time. Corinne dismisses her needs, and Indi internally wrestles with guilt about working for Sophie while people starve in the camp outside the blast gate.

Fran rides with Nam-joo to a Seabrook checkpoint. A Legion woman checks their names and issues them laminated cards stamped XX. Fran feels a giddy wave of relief—no one knows her secret. They're waved through with a cheerful welcome.

Robbie leaves the bunker with Doe and others in a pickup truck. They pass the refugee camp, where a woman steps into the road and spits in their tire tracks. Robbie sees a tall black trans girl with scars on both shoulders watching from under laundry lines. He reflects on why he's in the Screw and not with the refugees, wondering if he's there only because a girl held his hand and asked him to go steady.

Beth is shown the dressing room by Dani, a younger trans woman who explains the daddying work—the sexual services the bunker provides. Beth breaks down crying, saying she asked for warehouse or kitchen work. Dani comforts her, pulling her into a bony embrace and saying they'll take care of her. Beth remembers a graduation photo of herself and Fran, and the night Fran posed naked in front of a mirror asking what if she were a girl. Beth's dysphoria overwhelms her.

Robbie goes hunting with Sam (Fisher), a stocky girl with pigtails who reminds him of a girl he kissed at Baptist summer camp. They track a feral man through the pine forest, finding signs of his passage—urine, feces, a marked tree. They spot him tearing apart a feral cat. Sam's first shot goes wide, and the man charges. Robbie's bolt takes him in the throat, and Sam finishes him with a bolt through the eye. They harvest his testicles and kidneys. Robbie wonders what happened to the Screw's last doctor.

Fran and Nam-joo arrive at the Shaw house for a council meeting. Inside, Fran recognizes one of the councilwomen—short blond hair, a flower tattoo, a septum piercing. She thinks: ah, fuck.

Key Events

• Fran swims in the Screw's pool and feels a rare moment of safety and peace

• Indi faces pressure from Corinne Slate about the delayed fertility work and explains the dangers of infected semen

• Fran and Nam-joo receive XX-stamped ID cards at a Legion checkpoint

• Robbie leaves the bunker and passes the refugee camp, feeling guilt and discomfort

• Beth breaks down in the dressing room and is comforted by Dani

• Robbie and Sam hunt and kill a feral man with crossbows

• Fran recognizes a councilwoman from her past at the Shaw house

Character Development

Fran experiences a rare moment of physical ease and belonging in the pool, but her relief at the XX card reveals how precarious her sense of safety remains. The chapter shows her oscillating between hope and fear—she can imagine a life where she never runs again, but the recognition of the councilwoman at the end threatens that fantasy.

Indi is caught between her technical competence and her moral unease. She knows exactly what Sophie wants—a child to reprogram the bunker's locks—and she's doing it anyway, rationalizing that people are starving everywhere. Her guilt is present but not yet decisive.

Robbie is the chapter's moral center. He's uncomfortable in the bunker's wealth, aware of the class and race dynamics, and haunted by the refugee camp. His question—why am I here—is the chapter's central moral challenge. His discomfort with the hunting and the violence is palpable, but he participates anyway.

Beth is overwhelmed by dysphoria and the prospect of daddying work. Dani's kindness offers a moment of solidarity, but Beth's breakdown reveals how fragile she is.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Passing and visibility: Fran's relief at the XX card—no one knows at all—captures the central tension of her existence. The card is a bureaucratic fiction that grants her safety, but it's also a reminder that her identity is contingent on others' perception.

Complicity and moral compromise: Indi's work for Sophie, Robbie's participation in the hunt, and even Fran's acceptance of the XX card all involve forms of moral compromise. The chapter asks what it means to survive in a system that requires you to participate in its violence.

Class and privilege: The Screw's wealth—the pool, the salon, the cocktail lounge—contrasts sharply with the refugee camp outside. Robbie's discomfort with the bunker's aesthetic highlights the class divide.

The body as site of violence: The feral man's body is dismembered and harvested; Beth's body is scrutinized and found wanting; Fran's body is hidden and policed. The chapter is full of bodies that are violated, examined, or controlled.

Memory and trauma: Fran's swim memories, Beth's graduation photo, Robbie's memories of his grandfather—the past keeps intruding on the present, shaping how each character understands themselves.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter deepens the novel's exploration of what survival costs. It shows the bunker's internal dynamics—the administrative pressure on Indi, the daddying work that Beth is assigned, the hunting expeditions that keep the compound fed—while also revealing the moral compromises each character makes. The chapter's final image, Fran recognizing the councilwoman, sets up a confrontation that threatens to expose her secret and destabilize everything she's built.

Study Questions

1. Why does Fran feel such relief when she receives the XX card at the checkpoint?

Fran's relief stems from the card's function as official recognition of her identity. For a decade, she's been hiding and hunching and scratching imperfections from her skin, constantly aware of the ways her body might betray her. The card is a bureaucratic stamp of approval—it says, in effect, that she belongs, that she's a woman in the eyes of the Legion. But the relief is also fragile: she knows the card is a fiction, and the chapter's ending suggests that fiction may be about to collapse.

2. What does Robbie's discomfort in the bunker reveal about the Screw's social structure?

Robbie's discomfort is rooted in class and race. He notes that the bunker's women are mostly white, mostly young, mostly pretty, and he feels like a rat scurrying through the main passage. His awareness of his Taos Pueblo heritage and his uncertainty about whether the women are trying to figure out if he's white or not reveals the bunker's unspoken hierarchies. The Screw may be a refuge for trans women, but it's also a place where privilege operates—where wealth, whiteness, and conventional beauty confer status.

3. How does the hunting scene with Robbie and Sam complicate the novel's treatment of violence?

The hunting scene is deliberately uncomfortable. Robbie and Sam kill a feral man—a creature that was once a person—and then harvest his organs. The scene is matter-of-fact, almost clinical, but Robbie's lingering question about the Screw's last doctor suggests unease. The violence is necessary for survival, but it's also dehumanizing. The chapter refuses to let the reader feel good about the kill, even though the feral man is a genuine threat.

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