Chapter 38 Summary, Analysis, and Discussion Questions

⚠️ 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

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The chapter opens in mid-November, when Nottingham's nights are dominated by wartime defensive measures. Oil drums burn from dusk until dawn, producing thick, greasy smoke that blankets the streets to obscure the city from enemy bombers. In addition, large decoy fires are lit in distant fields outside the city, drawing planes to drop their bombs on empty land rather than on homes and factories.

Emma is weighed down by letters from her daughter Olivia, who is still in London. Olivia's appeals have escalated in stages: first requests to come home, then demands—something she rarely made—and finally bargaining, with promises of better maths marks and perfect school attendance. The most recent letter asks, plaintively, whether Emma still loves her. Emma stares at the letter, torn between the daily bombing of London and the fear that Nottingham may not remain safe indefinitely. She dreads writing the reply she knows Olivia will not want to hear.

Emma is late for her evening tea with Mrs. Pickering. When she descends to the landlady's flat, Tubby the dog is scratching at the rear porch door. Mrs. Pickering explains that Tubby is after their Christmas dinner, and leads Emma outside, turning off lights to comply with the blackout. On the porch, in the light of a nearly full moon, sits a rabbit cage containing a small brown bunny with large dark eyes. Mrs. Pickering has acquired the rabbit to fatten for Christmas dinner, and deliberately has not named it—she calls it simply