45 pages • 1 hour read
Isabel AllendeIn the Midst of Winter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 22-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary
Lucia and Richard return to the cabin to meet Evelyn. They decide that they should rest for the night and resume leaving Kathryn’s body at the Omega Institute the following day when they are more rested.
That night, while Evelyn sleeps, Lucia and Richard talk intimately and extensively. Richard reveals that he continued drinking during the start of his academic post at New York University in 1991. Anita would stay at home and never leave their apartment. There was an attempt to find her a psychiatrist in New York, but she refused. One weekend, Richard went away with Horacio to the cabin and was notified that his wife had committed suicide by jumping from their apartment window. This devastated Richard so much that he stopped drinking and indulging in extreme behaviors. Lucia had heard rumors of Richard’s wife’s death before this; she realizes this is the first time he has properly talked about it with another person. While Richard laments being “a drunk, for [his] negligence, for loving [Anita and Bibi] much less than they deserved” (306), Lucia consoles him. She tells him that what happened to Anita and Bibi were not his fault and that he needs to live his life.
In the intimacy of their sharing, Richard reveals his feelings of love towards Lucia and she encourages him to pursue her. They make love in a shared sleeping bag, careful not to wake Evelyn.
Chapter 23 Summary
As Lucia, Richard, and Evelyn drive towards the Omega Institute, they discuss the possibilities behind Kathryn’s murder. Evelyn reveals that Kathryn was three months pregnant with Mr. Leroy’s child. It is likely that she put pressure on Mr. Leroy about the child and he killed her before Mrs. Leroy could find out. However, Mr. Leroy has an alibi: he was out of town when the murder took place.
Lucia and Richard discuss how to help Evelyn after they give Kathryn a proper funeral. Evelyn wants to return to Guatemala as she promised her grandmother. Lucia and Richard balk at the idea, since she would be subjected to further gang violence upon her return. Lucia has already asked Daniela to house Evelyn temporarily in Miami where she should be able to find work in a predominantly Latino city. When it becomes safe for Evelyn to travel again, she can return to her mother’s place in Chicago.
Upon arrival at the Omega Institute, Evelyn sees a jaguar that leads all of them to a place called the Sanctuary: a Japanese-style pagoda considered “the spiritual heart of the community” (319). They bring Kathryn’s body to the pagoda where they clean her body of the blood and perform her funeral rites. Evelyn performs the role of the “priestess” (321), guiding them through a ritual. At the end, they join hands and pray. When Richard tells Lucia that he does not know how to pray, she says she will show him, explaining, “We’re going to help Kathryn and her little one go up to heaven” (322).
Chapter 24 Summary
In the months following their funeral for Kathryn, the newspapers report the sighting of Kathryn’s corpse as “a possible human sacrifice by members of an immigrant cult in New York State” (325). When the autopsy report shows that Kathryn was pregnant and that Mr. Leroy is a likely culprit, racialized assumptions about her death subside. Mr. Leroy is released after questioning. While they do not charge him for her death, suspicion of his involvement does allow for the police and FBI to search his home to uncover information about his role in the human trafficking ring. Mr. Leroy flees to Mexico, but his plan is discovered by one of his associates who had infiltrated the trafficking ring. Mr. Leroy and several other network bosses are killed during a raid at a ranch in Guerrero where many victims of the trafficking ring are held.
When Lucia reveals the news to Evelyn about Mr. Leroy’s demise, Evelyn tries to make contact with Mrs. Leroy to see Frankie again. Mrs. Leroy hangs up immediately. Lucia arrives at Mrs. Leroy’s home, leaving a note with her contact information, offering to explain on behalf of Evelyn. When Mrs. Leroy contacts Lucia, she reveals that she was the one who shot Kathryn after a confrontation went awry. She left Kathryn’s body in her husband’s car. She was too distraught to figure out the next step of her plan before Evelyn took the vehicle. When Mrs. Leroy saw that Evelyn was missing, she assumed that she stole the car with Kathryn’s body as a way of protecting her and Frankie. Lucia reveals that Evelyn did not know about the body until the collision with Richard. She also tells Mrs. Leroy that the car is at the bottom of the lake now. When Mrs. Leroy asks what she should do next, Lucia tells her that everything they shared will be between them. She also adds that she need not worry about Mr. Leroy anymore, as “Frank Leroy has already done you and many others enough harm” (335-6).
Epilogue Summary
In the near future, Richard and Lucia live together in Brooklyn where they have become a romantic couple. They prepare to retrieve Richard’s father on their way to meeting Evelyn at the bus station where she will be coming in from Miami. Evelyn has created a normal life for herself, working as a waitress and daycare center worker. She is able to send money back to her grandmother in Guatemala so that she can live comfortably despite showing obvious signs of aging quickly.
Lucia and Richard discuss whether they should tell Evelyn about the truth behind Kathryn’s murder. Lucia insists that they hide this from her, stating, “Why complicate things?” (339) Richard submits to Lucia’s plan reluctantly, arguing that he never imagined being a part of obstructing justice. Lucia tells him that they are part of “natural justice” (339), which does not exist in the current unjust systems of the world. They profess their love for each other.
Chapters 22-Epilogue Analysis
In the final chapters of the novel, Lucia, Richard, and Evelyn conclude their journey by giving Kathryn a funeral inspired by American and non-American traditions, incorporating modified rituals that are culturally significant to them. While Evelyn had been steered by Lucia and Richard through much of the journey, she becomes the “priestess” whose visions and practices inform the funeral. As the facilitator of the ritual, Evelyn guides the group to lay offerings and give prayer to the dead, allowing them all to mourn their personal losses as well. While the funeral is for Kathryn, it also helps the three of them grieve and find closure for the ones they have loved and lost in their lives.
As the jaguar is a recurring figure that protects Evelyn throughout her migration journey, the animal returns one last time to help the three main protagonists locate a funeral site for Kathryn. The name of the site, the Sanctuary, referring to a place of safety, also has political significance as it alludes to a place that offers political asylum for undocumented people. The arrival at the Sanctuary, led by a mystical animal force and the three protagonists’ desire to do the right thing, suggests that protection and safety does not come from the law itself but by compassion and empathic human intervention.
In the novel’s conclusion, “natural justice” becomes the way in which Lucia justifies their intervention in Evelyn’s life and Kathryn’s burial. Knowing that without their intervention, Evelyn might be blamed for a crime she did not commit and endure further suffering, Lucia and Richard’s assistance helped to give Evelyn another chance in life. Richard’s penultimate act of negligence results from a car accident, but his path to redemption also happens as the result of a crash. At the same time, by falsely attributing the murder to Mr. Leroy, they topple a human trafficking ring that had victimized many people who were in positions no different from Evelyn’s. This signifies how fickle justice is in its legal and moral forms.
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By Isabel Allende
