61 pages • 2 hours read
Joyce McdonaldSwallowing Stones
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1997A 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 21-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary
Michael
Michael feels there’s nowhere to hide from the people whose lives he’s messed up, with Darcy, Amy, and Jenna attending the pool regularly. Joe was arrested the night he attacked Amy’s car, while Michael followed the ambulance with Amy to the hospital. Amy’s grandfather prevented Michael from seeing her, and he hasn’t been able to reach her since.
When Michael gets home from work, his family tells him about Joe being taken in for questioning. Michael drives straight to Joe’s house, desperate for answers. Before knocking, he thinks he sees Jenna behind a tree but convinces himself he’s just paranoid. Joe is standoffish. The boys go to Joe’s old treehouse to talk. Joe says it was routine questioning, but Michael knows that no one else was brought in. Joe explains that they can’t pin anything on him without the weapon and rants about the police targeting him because of his reputation. Joe calls Amy a derogatory name. Michael feels the urge to reply, but he allows Joe to speak. Joe says a few kids from the party said they saw Joe with the gun. Michael says that’s not possible, but Joe admits to messing with it while Michael was with Amy. He calls Amy another name, and Michael defends her this time.
The police arrive to search Joe’s house. Joe feels safe because there’s no gun on the property. He adds that he asked an attorney what could happen to the murderer. Joe’s attorney explained that it would be involuntary manslaughter, but if the perpetrator tried to hide evidence or lie, things would be worse. Michael feels terrible that he didn’t immediately go to the police when he had the chance. Michael vows to tell the truth if Joe gets arrested, but Joe believes they’re both in trouble either way.
Chapter 22 Summary
Michael worries he cannot trust Joe anymore after learning that Joe messed with the rifle while Michael was with Amy. He wonders if maybe Joe is the murderer, which would explain Joe’s behavior, but Michael knows deep down he shot the bullet that killed Charlie Ward. The timing wouldn’t align for Joe to be the shooter anyway. Michael knows the town will think Joe did it because of his reputation.
Michael walks around and finds Amy outside her house. They talk about Joe. Amy tells Michael that Joe revealed he’d brought her to Michael’s party as a present. Michael insists he didn’t know Joe would bring Amy, but Amy feels that isn’t the point since they hooked up anyway. Michael apologizes to Amy and admits his motivations with her have changed since the party.
Michael wonders why Joe would try to hurt Amy further by telling her such a thing. Michael briefly wishes Joe would get arrested. He doesn’t mean it, however. Michael knows he’s the only person responsible.
Amy tells Michael she spoke to the police. They’re talking to everyone at the party. Michael begins to tell Amy the truth, but she stops him before he gets it out. She already knows. Amy would rather he tell the people who need to hear it. Amy was at the party and knows Michael and Joe went into the woods. She begins to cry as she remembers. She’d been trying not to think about it. Michael realizes she’s been kind to him despite her suspicions. Michael feels terrible and wonders how he’ll face the next few days. Amy embraces Michael, and he breaks down crying.
Chapter 23 Summary
Jenna
Jenna wants to approach Amy at the pool, but she’s worried her friends will judge her for talking to Amy. She wonders why people are so mean to Amy when Amy is a sweet and kind person. Jenna decides to ignore what her friends might think.
Jenna approaches Amy and thanks her for the letter. Amy explains that the hardest part for her was feeling guilty that she survived the car crash when her parents didn’t. At the suggestion of guilt, Jenna feels the panic she often feels around Jason. She changes the subject and asks about Joe. Amy asks her questions in return, which makes Jenna nervous. Jenna asks if Joe is a friend of Michael’s, and Amy asks if Jenna knows Michael. Jenna says she knows of him but doesn’t know him personally. Jenna notices Michael watching them. Amy asks if Jenna believes Joe killed her father. Jenna isn’t sure. Amy says she doesn’t believe he did it. She apologizes for not being more helpful and leaves. Jenna looks back to see Michael still watching them, looking disturbed.
Jenna and Jason go for a walk later. Jenna explains what’s happening with her anxiety around Jason, and Jason listens patiently. He doesn’t blame Jenna for her reaction because he knows she can’t control it, but he wishes he knew how to fix it.
Jason reminds Jenna that they were on the phone moments before her dad died. As Jenna remembers, she realizes this is the source of her dread and guilt. Her mother had asked her to get off the phone to call her father down from the roof for lunch, but Jenna wouldn’t. Jenna realizes if she had gotten off the phone the first time she was asked, her father wouldn’t have still been on the roof to get shot. She begins to cry. Jason comforts her and reminds her that she can’t blame herself. Jenna remembers what Amy said about guilt and wonders how she’ll tell her mother. Jason holds Jenna’s hand as they walk back to Jenna’s house, and Jenna is relieved that her anxiety is gone.
Chapter 24 Summary
Jenna feels thankful that she and her mother have grown closer since her father’s death, but she worries her news about the phone call will make her mother hate her. Jenna crawls in bed with her mom.
Jenna reveals how she feels responsible for her father’s death because of her phone call with Jason. She apologizes to her mother for everything. Meredith replies that she’s had similar thoughts, regretting having asked Charlie to go on the roof in the first place. Meredith discusses the dangers of “what ifs,” and Jenna realizes that neither of them had any way of knowing something terrible would happen. Meredith encourages Jenna not to let the “what ifs” get to her because her father wouldn’t want her blaming herself. She reminds Jenna that the only one responsible is the one who shot the gun.
Meredith says things look bad for Joe Sadowski. Jenna mentions how her “friend” doesn’t believe Joe is guilty. Meredith suggests Jenna’s friend tell the police if she knows something. Jenna begins to wonder if it was Michael, and that’s why his face haunts her dreams.
Chapter 25 Summary
The Healing
Jenna dreams of the Ghost Tree and her father again. He shows her a sky full of stars above them. She feels she’ll forever be connected to him, even though he’s passed. Jenna gets out of bed while it’s still dark and takes her bike to the Great Swamp.
Michael also cannot sleep. He knows he must confess, but he’s terrified. He realizes he’s had a stone in his throat this entire time and wasn’t swallowing it, so now he’s drowning. He feels like a coward. Michael sleeps briefly and dreams of Charlie Ward being friendly to him. When Michael wakes, it’s still dark, and he feels less burdened.
Michael gets out of bed and digs the rifle up from the backyard. Holding the rifle for the first time since he buried it makes Michael feel righteous about what he’s doing—not just for Joe but for himself. Michael gets into his father’s car with the rifle and drives off.
Jenna feels her dreams have steered her to the Ghost Tree to help her find closure. Jenna is sure Michael MacKenzie shot the gun. She doesn’t hate him. She wants to tell him the next time she sees him on the church steps that she knows it was him and listen to what he says. Jenna climbs into the cradle of the Ghost Tree, planning to see her father and tell him how much she misses him.
Michael drives, wondering what he’ll tell the police to help Joe not face consequences. Michael drives to the church to wait on the steps. He plans to tell Jenna first before going to the police, but he feels uneasy waiting so long. He decides to drive to the Ghost Tree.
Michael is shocked to find Jenna sleeping under the tree. It scares him at first, but then he feels he’s supposed to be there. He feels Jenna is confronting her pain at the tree. Jenna has a small smile as she sleeps. Michael dreads their conversation when she awakens, but it’s his stone to swallow. He takes a seat next to her. He watches over her as she sleeps, thinking about the Ghost Tree’s legends. He feels the Ghost Tree is about facing what haunts you. He plans to wait as long as he must until Jenna wakes up.
Chapters 21-25 Analysis
The final five chapters of the book follow Michael and Jenna for two chapters, respectively, and then end with a final chapter switching perspectives between both of the main characters for the first time since the Prologue.
In Chapters 21 and 22, Michael’s worst fears come true as Joe becomes the police’s primary target, taking him in for questioning and searching Joe’s house with a warrant. The escalation of the conflict between Michael, Joe, and the police develops all three of the novel’s main themes. In Chapter 21, when Michael presses Joe about why the police took him to the station for questioning, Joe retorts, “I got quite a reputation with the local powers that be” (211). Joe is referring to his past encounters with the police, from the eighth-grade incident Michael references in Chapter 2 to the most recent charge of being drunk and disorderly, as well as the destruction of property when he attacked Amy’s vehicle. Joe’s certainty that the police are targeting him because of his reputation develops The Influence of Reputation theme by showing how Joe knows his reputation makes it harder for people to trust him. Joe’s reputation comes up again in Chapter 22 when Michael learns that Joe told Amy that she’d been brought to the party as a present for Michael. Michael feels “so betrayed that he didn’t care if Joe was accused of the murder. […] Nobody would take Joe’s word over his” (218). Michael’s impulse to allow Joe to take the fall for the murder and logic that it would be easy to let that happen allude to Joe’s reputation, not just with the police but with the town as a whole. No one except Michael trusts Joe or sees him as more than a troublemaker, and that reputation makes it tempting for Michael to betray Joe.
Michael’s impulse to let Joe take the blame is part of a bigger picture of Michael’s inner grief. As the days pass, it seems Michael’s only options dwindle to coming clean or allowing Joe to be arrested. The novel explores the theme of Grief and Denial here. The more it looks like he’s going to have to turn himself in, the more Michael begins to grieve the future he’d planned for himself. With this surge of grief, denial also surfaces one more time for Michael as he searches desperately for a reason why he couldn’t have shot the fatal shot. In Chapter 22, Michael considers, “Was it possible that [Joe had] been talking about firing the gun that killed Charlie Ward and letting Michael believe it was his fault?” (215) in an attempt to reason himself out of believing he’s responsible. However, Michael acknowledges that the timing wouldn’t align, knowing “in his heart that his friend hadn’t done it” (216). Michael’s last attempt at denial is his final step before accepting that he’s to blame for Charlie Ward’s death and accepting the consequences that come with that. This also develops the theme of The Consequences of Impulsive Actions by showing how Michael has made a mess of not just his own life but also Joe’s through his attempts to avoid facing consequences.
In Chapters 23 and 24, Jenna seeks closure regarding her feelings around Jason and her confusion about how Amy, Joe, and Michael are tied together. At the beginning of Chapter 23, Jenna wants to approach Amy at the pool to ask about Joe, but “Jenna knew full well how Andrea and the others would react if she suddenly got up and walked over to where Amy sat” (223). Jenna’s concerns about what her friends will think if she goes to speak to Amy develop the theme of The Influence of Reputation by showing how Jenna worries about being judged for speaking to someone with an unsavory reputation. Although Amy doesn’t answer many of Jenna’s questions, she does indicate that she doesn’t believe Joe shot the gun. Additionally, Jenna notices Michael watching them, “obviously disturbed about something” (227). These two details, along with Michael’s appearance in her dreams, lead Jenna to feel that “she knows now that it was Michael MacKenzie who fired the shot that killed her father. She knows this in a way that she isn’t used to knowing. But she trusts her instincts” (242). Jenna’s conversation helps her gain clarity on the situation with Michael and why he appears in her dreams.
Jenna also gets closure with Jason in these chapters when she confronts the reasons why she panics around him. Jenna recalls that she was on the phone with Jason when she should’ve been calling her father off the roof for lunch. Jenna begins to blame herself for her father’s death. Jenna’s blocking out the guilt she feels around her father’s death and blaming herself for his death develop the theme of Grief and Denial by showing how grief and denial work together to create guilt. It isn’t until Jenna discusses these feelings with her mom in Chapter 24 that she begins to accept things how they are and not concern herself with “what ifs.”
Chapter 25 draws the story to a close and features the symbolism of the Ghost Tree and the motif of Swallowing Stones for a final time. Both Jenna and Michael are drawn to the Ghost Tree on the same night, both having finally accepted the things they needed to accept. Michael accepts responsibility for the shooting and accepts that he must turn himself in, while Jenna accepts that her father is gone and accepts that she must go on without him. After discovering Jenna in the cradle of the tree, Michael observes that coming to the Ghost Tree “is about facing the things that haunt you” (245). For Jenna, the tree represents her last loose end. She’s come to communicate with her father to say the goodbyes she didn’t get to tell him before. The Ghost Tree symbolizes acceptance and closure for both Jenna and Michael, and it’s drawn them together so they can get that from one another.
Before leaving for the Ghost Tree, Michael revisits the titular swallowing stones motif. He realizes “he has been carrying the stone in his throat all this time. He hasn’t swallowed it at all, and he is drowning” (240). Michael’s acknowledgment that he hasn’t been swallowing stones this entire time but rather attempting to swim with stones in his throat symbolizes how he’s attempted to avoid consequences for his actions, which has created more trouble for him and those around him. This motif develops the idea of The Consequences of Impulsive Actions by showing how the best path forward is to face one’s consequences head-on without trying to avoid responsibility. As Michael waits for Jenna to wake so he can have the hardest conversation of his life, he acknowledges, “This is what swallowing stones is all about” (245). Michael’s decision to swallow his personal stone and face the consequences of his actions completes Michael’s story arc. The novel leaves off with Jenna sleeping, allowing the reader to fill in the gaps of what comes after.
