Chapter 28: The Green Leotard – Summary and Analysis
Spoiler Notice
This chapter summary contains spoilers for Remarkably Bright Creatures. If you have not read through Chapter 28, proceed with caution.
Summary
In the early pages of Chapter 28, Tova revisits the Wednesday evening in 1989 when her son Erik died. She arrived home from a Jazzercise class at the Sowell Bay Community Center, still wearing an emerald-green leotard under her sweatpants. Will, her husband, intercepted her in the bedroom, and they made love in the fading sunlight. Afterward, Will tossed the leotard over the arm of the Charleston chair in the living room. The next morning, when Erik failed to return from his late-night shift at the ferry ticket booth, the police came. The green leotard remained on the chair throughout the investigation, an unofficial piece of evidence. Tova eventually moved it to the hamper and washed it, but the memory of that detail stays with her.
The narrative then shifts to the attic of her childhood home—the house where she still lives. Tova’s father built the attic when she was young, replacing a ladder with a staircase and adding a dormer window. She and her brother Lars played there as children, but after they grew up, the attic became storage. Years later, when Tova and Will moved back to care for her mother, they stored Erik’s baby toys in the attic. After Erik died, Tova left everything untouched. An incident with Will years afterward required replacing the dormer window, which now frames a bright view of the water.
Late that same night, Tova climbs to the attic. She picks up a toy car that belonged to Erik and slips it into her robe pocket. She then returns to bed, where her cat sleeps beside her. In a dream, she feels herself being wrapped in tentacles with tiny suckers; the pressure creates a cocoon that leaves her utterly alone, and she experiences a feeling of profound relief as she finally falls asleep.
Key Events
- Tova remembers the night of Erik’s disappearance in 1989, including the green leotard left on the Charleston chair.
- The police investigation is recalled, and the leotard remains visible until Tova eventually puts it in the hamper.
- Tova reflects on her childhood attic: her father built the staircase, installed a dormer window, and furnished it with a dollhouse, table, and carved chairs.
- After moving back to care for Tova’s mother, she and Will stored Erik’s baby toys in the attic; Tova’s mother insisted they save them for grandchildren.
- Will once broke the dormer window during an incident caused by grief, and later replaced it with a larger window.
- Late that night, Tova takes Erik’s toy car from the attic and keeps it in her robe pocket.
- In her dream, tentacles wrap around Tova, forming a cocoon that brings her relief and allows her to sleep.
Character Development
Tova Sullivan
This chapter deepens Tova’s portrait by grounding her grief in specific, ordinary moments. The green leotard becomes a symbol of the life that suddenly stopped. Her decision to keep Erik’s toys in the attic for decades shows how she has frozen her grief in physical objects. The dream of tentacles—clearly Marcellus the octopus—reveals a longing to be enveloped and isolated, a desire to escape from the loneliness she has carried since Erik’s death.
Will Sullivan
Will is now dead, but through Tova’s memory we see how grief affected him differently. The “incident” involving the attic window hints at a destructive outburst, yet Tova treats it as a momentary departure from his normal self. Will’s reaction contrasts with Tova’s quiet preservation; both forms of grief are valid but pull them apart.
Erik Sullivan
Though Erik died before the novel’s present, he remains a presence. The chapter shows Tova’s maternal bond through the small details she remembers: his late-night shift, his social life, the toy car. Erik is presented as a good kid, and his absence hollows out Tova’s life.
The Cat and Marcellus
The cat (Cat) provides Tova with simple physical comfort, while the octopus appears only in Tova’s dream. Marcellus’s tentacles in the dream represent a non-human form of support that Tova craves—absolute, silent, and enveloping.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
The Green Leotard
The leotard is the chapter’s central symbol. It stands for the interrupted intimacy between Tova and Will on the last normal night before Erik’s disappearance. That it stays on the chair, an “unofficial part of the record,” suggests that the ordinary details of grief are often overlooked by official investigations but remain indelible to the bereaved.
The Attic as Memory Vault
The attic serves as a physical space where Tova stores the past. It holds her childhood playthings, her father’s craftsmanship, and her son’s baby toys. The room has been preserved exactly as it was, mirroring Tova’s refusal to move on. The new dormer window, brighter and larger, hints at a possibility of light and change, yet Tova still keeps the old toy car.
The Cocoon Dream
The dream of being wrapped in tentacles with suckers inverts the usual fear of entanglement. Tova feels “relief” and “blissfully alone.” This motif suggests the octopus (Marcellus) offers a form of care that human relationships cannot provide: unconditional, enveloping, and free from the need to talk about the past.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 28 provides the most detailed flashback to the night Erik died, filling in a gap that was only hinted at in earlier chapters. It establishes the emotional weight of the green leotard as a private memory, which later may connect to objects Tova leaves in her present-day life. The attic’s history also explains why Tova has stayed in the house despite its painful associations. Finally, the dream introduces the idea that Marcellus’s presence is beginning to affect Tova on a subconscious level, setting up a deeper bond between them in the chapters to come.
Study Questions and Answers
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Why does Tova take the toy car from the attic?
The toy car (Erik’s missing-wheel car) is a tangible link to her son. She retrieves it because she is finally preparing to leave the house and wants to keep one artifact of Erik’s childhood. It also shows she is ready to break the paralysis of saving things for grandchildren that never came. -
What does the green leotard reveal about Tova’s relationship with Will?
The way Will peeled the leotard off her suggests an active, affectionate marriage. The leotard being left in plain sight during the investigation underscores how their last intimate moment was interrupted by tragedy. Tova remembers it with a mix of happiness and pain, indicating that she still values that memory. -
How does the attic dream foreshadow Tova’s future connection with Marcellus?
In the dream, Marcellus’s tentacles create a cocoon that isolates Tova from the world, and she feels relief. This longing for solitude and non-verbal comfort aligns with the growing trust Tova develops for the octopus in the aquarium. The dream suggests that Marcellus’s presence will help Tova process her grief in a way humans cannot.