Chapter 42: December — Summary and Analysis

⚠️ 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

After traveling through the Southwest, Wren returns to Dallas because she has nowhere else to be. The city's familiar sterility now feels strange and artificial, and the highways around her neighborhood seem like unnatural ribbons. To survive the endless days, she creates lists of chores and forces herself to complete them. She vacuums every difficult spot—behind appliances, under bookshelves, in the car's narrow cracks. She throws away Lewis's medication, toiletries, and hot sauce collection. She rearranges the living room furniture, pushing the sofa against a wall that doesn't make sense, so she has to climb over it to reach the patio door. She sleeps in the guest room on new, cheap sheets. She paints the living room a color called Agreeable Gray and hates it immensely.

Each day she tells herself she can't imagine life without him, yet she is living it. She keeps finding treehouse drawings around the house, but she avoids the draft of Lewis's play—an unbound stack of papers held together with a thick binder clip on his bedroom bookshelf. She treats this as a sacred text and decides to read only one word per day. She maintains this word diet for almost two weeks, but one night, after allowing herself two sentences, she binges the entire play. She feels disgusted with herself and then devastated, because his work can no longer be discovered. She has lost him all over again.

On the day she plans to return to work, an ice storm shuts down all of North Texas. Unable to bear being alone in the house, she walks the backyard, crunching on frozen grass, and collapses into the frozen hammock. The ice snaps and falls off in ropes beneath her. She remembers the previous summer when Lewis's body was pressed against hers. A murmuration of blackbirds settles in waves—on the roof, on telephone lines, in the tree, on the frosted grass—until the entire backyard is covered except for Wren and the hammock. Then, as quickly as they came, the birds lift off as a single segmented unit. Wren laughs at the absurdity of her rare odds, the suffering, the sacrifice. An unexplained stillness overcomes her. She thinks about the fragility of her body: her lungs pumping oxygen for over thirty-five years without a break, her joints and bones, her eyeballs—fragile mystery-meat globs that contain a complicated mechanism for sight. She remembers that she and Lewis met in a daydream once, but they also knew each other in real life. She asks Lewis in her head who she is supposed to be without him. He replies, “Anything you like.” She calls up to the birds on the tree branch above her: “I am an animal, too, you know.”

Key Events

Wren returns to Dallas after traveling through the Southwest and finds the city alienating.
She copes by completing a series of chore lists: vacuuming, discarding Lewis's belongings, rearranging furniture, sleeping in the guest room, and painting the living room a color she hates.
She avoids reading Lewis's play draft, then binges it after a word-a-day diet, feeling devastated as if she has lost him again.
An ice storm cancels her planned return to work.
She walks the backyard and collapses into the frozen hammock, recalling the previous summer with Lewis.
A murmuration of blackbirds settles across the yard, then lifts off as one.
Wren laughs at the absurdity, then feels stillness and reflects on the fragility of her body.
She asks Lewis who she should be without him; he replies “Anything you like.”
She tells the birds she is an animal too.

Character Development

This chapter shows Wren moving through several stages of grief. Initially, she uses routine and physical labor to avoid confronting her loss—she vacuums, discards, rearranges, and paints, all in an attempt to disrupt the haunted memories of the space. Her avoidance of Lewis's play is a clear sign of her fear of fully experiencing his absence. When she finally reads the play, she is devastated, but the act itself is a form of confrontation.

The ice storm forces her into stillness. Her collapse into the hammock—a place of shared memory—marks a shift from avoidance to immersion in memory. The blackbirds' arrival and departure mirror her sense of abandonment, but her laughter at the absurdity suggests a release of pent-up emotion. Her reflection on her body's fragility connects her to the natural world, and her question to Lewis—and his answer—indicates a growing acceptance of her own agency. By declaring herself an animal, she embraces a new identity that is not defined solely by her relationship to Lewis.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Grief and Coping Through Routine: Wren's chore lists are a way to impose order on chaos, but they also serve as a distraction from her pain.
Avoidance and Confrontation: She avoids the play, then binges it, showing the tension between wanting to preserve and wanting to let go.
Nature as Mirror: The ice storm and blackbirds reflect Wren's emotional state—the frozen hammock holds memory, the birds' departure echoes her fear of being left.
Animal Identity: Wren's final declaration to the birds ties to the novel's broader theme of transformation and the blurring of human and animal boundaries.
Fragility of the Body: Her meditation on lungs, joints, and eyeballs underscores the vulnerability of human existence.
Sacred Text: Lewis's play is treated as a holy object, and reading it becomes a ritual of grief.
Letting Go: The birds lifting off and Lewis's reply “Anything you like” suggest a release from the past and permission to move forward.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 42 is a turning point in Wren's grief journey. It moves her from passive suffering to active engagement with her loss. The ice storm forces her to stop and feel, and the blackbirds provide a moment of connection to the natural world that echoes the novel's central themes of transformation and animality. Her question to Lewis and his answer give her permission to redefine herself. This chapter also deepens the reader's understanding of Wren's resilience and her capacity to find meaning in absurdity. It sets up the final chapters by showing her beginning to accept a new identity.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Wren's use of routine both help and hinder her grief process?

Answer: Routine gives Wren a sense of control and purpose, allowing her to function day to day. However, it also serves as a way to avoid confronting her emotions. The chores are distractions; she rearranges furniture to disrupt memories, but she still avoids the play. Only when the ice storm forces her to stop does she truly begin to process her loss.

2. What is the significance of the blackbirds in this chapter?

Answer: The blackbirds mirror Wren's feelings of abandonment—they settle around her but then leave, reinforcing her sense that nothing stays. Yet their collective movement also suggests a natural order and a kind of beauty in departure. Wren's laughter at their absurdity marks a shift from despair to acceptance, and her final address to them connects her to the animal world.

3. How does Lewis's reply “Anything you like” affect Wren's sense of identity?

Answer: Lewis's reply gives Wren permission to define herself independently. It suggests that her identity is not fixed by his absence, but open to her own choices. This moment, combined with her declaration that she is an animal, signals her embrace of a new, self-determined existence.

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