Your Kindness Will Never Be Forgotten: Chapter 37 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

The chapter opens with the narrator, Willie Bare Jr., standing barefoot beside a two-lane highway next to a cornfield, his feet cut and caked with dirt. His dog Flip is with him. An elderly farmer in a Ford Ranger pickup stops, and Willie claims car trouble, asking to be taken somewhere with a pay phone. The farmer, Bill McGregor, agrees.

As they drive, Willie realizes he never checked the truck's license plate and still doesn't know what state he's in. They pass a giant yellow drone tangled in electric transmission wires, struggling to free itself. Willie reflects on his recent conversation with his daughter Cammie, feeling embarrassed that he couldn't be more reassuring or fatherly. He thinks about his past life as a hired killer—transporting prisoners, planting explosives, spying, cleaning up after massacres, assassinating people—and wonders when he made the choice to abandon that life.

Willie finds a dirty stuffed rabbit in his pocket, taken from a pile in a South Carolina parking lot. He tells McGregor he has a daughter who's twenty-two and having trouble. The rabbit triggers a flood of memories: his mother teaching him not to get attached, drowning a baby rabbit in a motel toilet as a child while his mother watched, and eventually killing his mother when she discovered his syringe and bit his forearm. He reflects on the women who contributed to Cammie's existence—Rosalie Signorelli, who was hanged, and Posa Penza, who was poisoned—and on all 167 of his progeny.

McGregor stops at an abandoned gas station with a pay phone mounted to the wall. Willie wonders why the old man would pick up someone so dangerous-looking, noting that Experanza would have killed him and taken his truck. Willie thanks him, saying his kindness will never be forgotten, and gets out with Flip.

Key Events

• Willie hitchhikes barefoot with Flip and is picked up by Bill McGregor, an elderly farmer.

• They pass a giant yellow drone tangled in electric transmission wires.

• Willie realizes he doesn't know what state he's in.

• Willie reflects on his conversation with Cammie and his past as a hired killer.

• Willie finds the stuffed rabbit and recalls his mother's lesson about attachment and her death.

• McGregor drops Willie at an abandoned gas station with a working pay phone.

Character Development

Willie Bare Jr. — This chapter deepens Willie's self-awareness. He acknowledges his