Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual violence, rape, mental illness, child abuse, child sexual abuse, pregnancy loss, child death, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, animal death, illness, death, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.

The protagonist remembers a horrific crime from her teenage years, when a local boy killed his parents. He came home asking his mother to sew a button back onto a shirt. When she refused, he walked out to his caravan, grabbed his gun, came back in, and shot both parents dead. Afterward, he went to a teacher’s house and confessed to what he had done. The teacher called the police and sat with the boy until they arrived. The protagonist wonders what happened to the boy and thinks of what it must feel like for him to never be forgiven.

Helen Parry’s admission about her mother reminds the protagonist of this crime as she remembers Helen Parry’s mother’s violence. Though Helen Parry would stand up to anyone who bullied her, she could never stand up to her mother. Her mother would scream at and hit her in public, but Helen would only ever meet her with calm patience.