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 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
Jenna
For several days after Charlie Ward’s death, Jenna cries in her sleep and has a recurring dream in which she’s being dragged by vines toward the Ghost Tree—a pale white sycamore in town.
Many people have visited the house, bringing food, offering condolences, and asking questions. Rather than face them, Jenna has cleaned and organized her entire bedroom. When everything is perfectly organized, she works on math problems to occupy her brain. Jenna is passionate about math and finds comfort in it being black and white.
At her father’s funeral, Jenna struggles to know how she should feel. Both Jenna and her mother are quiet while the funeral guests buzz around them. In the weeks after the funeral, Jenna remains reclusive. When she sits by the backyard pool in the evenings, she expects her father will come home from work. Jenna’s best friend, Andrea, visits. She begs Jenna to try to enjoy the summer by coming to the pool or joining her at one of the many parties happening every night. Andrea feels Jenna needs to get out of the house. Jenna doesn’t like the idea of facing people who will feel sorry for her. Andrea means well, so Jenna agrees to join her at the pool the next day.
Jenna makes a sandwich and finds her mother sleeping on the couch. Jenna moves the blanket to cover her mother. Meredith wakes up and asks if Jenna has eaten. Jenna asks her mother why they had to be the ones to deal with this, of all people. She wonders if they did anything to deserve it. Meredith tries to comfort Jenna, but she isn’t sure what to say that won’t sound cliché.
Meredith muses about how she felt that if she did everything right, things would be fine—that they’d somehow be safe from tragedy. She and Jenna comfort each other and talk about how they still expect Charlie will walk through the door.
Over the last few weeks, Jenna has spotted a boy sitting on the steps of the church across the street. He doesn’t show up every evening, but he’s there often enough. Jenna isn’t sure what he’s doing or if he’s waiting for someone she never sees. Sometimes, his head is down. Jenna wonders why he’s there.
Chapter 7 Summary
Jenna continues to dream about vines pulling her toward the Ghost Tree. The dreams make her feel out of control. Jenna and Andrea visit the community pool, where Jenna reunites with her boyfriend, Jason. Jason has been away on a camping trip and didn’t know about Jenna’s father until he got back in town the night before.
Jason doesn’t know how to act around Jenna. Jenna feels panicked around Jason. She can barely speak, and her heart races. She excuses herself to dip into the pool. When she comes up, she notices a lifeguard watching her. Andrea says the lifeguard is Michael MacKenzie, track star and soon-to-be senior. She thinks he’s cute but knows he has a girlfriend.
When Jenna gets home, she calls the police department. She phones every day for updates on the case. Jason calls, and Jenna freezes up again on the phone with him but agrees to see a movie with him later. While trying to calm herself down, Jenna spots the boy on the church steps again and thinks he looks like the lifeguard from earlier. He curls up into a ball on the church steps, and Jenna can tell he’s in pain.
When Jenna’s mom gets home, she spots the “Honey Do” list on the fridge. She’s taken aback by the crossed-off leaky roof item and begins to cry. Jenna feels guilty for not getting rid of the list. Meredith collects herself and explains how so many things still catch her off guard. She’s especially fragile today because of a phone call from Chief Zelenski. She invites Jenna outside to talk about it.
Chapter 8 Summary
Meredith explains that the police have narrowed the bullet’s trajectory to a four-block zone. Jenna worries that they won’t find the killer because only handguns, not rifles, need to be registered. She also reminds her mother that not everyone registers their handguns. Meredith tries to stay optimistic. Jenna feels the police are not telling them something.
Jenna visits the police station and demands to see Chief Zelenski. She feels full of vengeance as she thinks about how unfair her father’s death was. Chief Zelenski refuses to give Jenna any more information, so Jenna visits the town gossip, Annie Rico, to ask about the investigation. Annie tells Jenna about the area across town where the police have been knocking on doors and asking questions.
When Jenna gets home, Jason is waiting for her. They take the bus to the mall. Jason talks about the science program he wants to join, and Jenna allows him to ramble because she doesn’t want to talk. They decide to see a buddy cop movie at the theater, but Jenna struggles to pay attention. She looks around and sees Amy at the movie alone. Jenna thinks Amy is brave to attend a movie alone, but then a handsy guy approaches Amy and takes the seat next to her. Amy seems uncomfortable with the guy.
Jason puts his arm around Jenna, sending her into another panic. Jenna cannot figure out why she feels so anxious and suffocated. She runs to the bathroom to try to stabilize herself, but she almost passes out. Amy comes to her rescue, helping her calm down and get her bearings. Jenna suggests Amy needs to get back to her date, but Amy replies that she’s at the movies alone. Amy makes sure Jenna is okay before leaving.
Outside, Jason apologizes for taking Jenna to a movie when she wasn’t ready. On the way home, Jenna considers if her panic around Jason is linked to her father’s death.
Chapter 9 Summary
Michael
Michael has a nightmare in which he’s the bullet that killed Charlie Ward. He wakes at three a.m. and cannot return to sleep. He goes downstairs, where he encounters Josh up late watching movies. Josh asks if Michael has heard about the police knocking on neighbors’ doors and asking questions. They’ve narrowed the bullet’s trajectory to their neighborhood.
Michael realizes that this eliminates doubt for him. Before, he pretended that the bullet could’ve come from elsewhere, but now he knows for sure he killed Charlie Ward. Josh jokingly asks if Michael has done any target practice with Grandpa’s rifle, but Michael warns him not to joke about those things.
Michael continues to visit Amy’s house, finding comfort in their time together, playing board games and watching movies. Sometimes, Michael finds himself wanting to hold Amy and be affectionate, but he stops himself. Michael doesn’t want Amy to think he’s using her, and he worries he is.
One night, Michael and Amy get into an argument over a word he plays in Scrabble. Michael realizes he’s irritable and decides to leave early. Before Michael leaves, Amy asks why he never tries to kiss after their tryst in his garage. Michael isn’t sure what to say. He worries about Darcy yet wishes she’d break up with him. He admits to himself that he wants Amy but leaves her without answers.
On the way home, he considers the consequences of his desires and his actions with Amy and Darcy. He decides just to let things unfold. Michael thinks differently about fate since Charlie Ward’s death.
Chapter 10 Summary
Michael takes another driver’s test and passes, so he’s no longer lying about that. Michael avoids Darcy for a few days after her vacation, but she finally catches him in the pool parking lot one evening.
Darcy is annoyed with Michael’s distant behavior. She asks him to tell her what’s going on, but when Michael assures her it has nothing to do with her, she leaps to the conclusion that he’s seeing Amy. Darcy calls Amy a derogatory term and accuses Michael of getting with her. Darcy and her friends saw Michael go down Amy’s street the other night. Michael clarifies that he and Amy are friends, but Darcy won’t hear it. Michael briefly considers telling Darcy the whole truth, but he stops himself.
Darcy calls Amy a pig. Michael defends Amy as a good person. He reaches out to touch Darcy’s shoulder, but she bites him and drives off. Michael feels relieved that things have ended with Darcy. Michael worries that it’s only a matter of time before he’s arrested anyway.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
Chapters 6 through 8 follow Jenna’s perspective for the first time since Chapter 2 and delve into the theme of Grief and Denial through the ways in which the Ward family navigates the aftermath of Charlie’s sudden death. These chapters also introduce several important symbols.
Jenna’s grief manifests in multifaceted ways. One way is her attempt to organize her space at home. She minutely manages her newly cleaned room, which she organized when she needed a space to get away from the visitors offering condolences. She also distances herself from the rest of the world, choosing to stay home rather than attend parties or visit with her best friend, Andrea. Jenna’s grief also manifests in denial. In Chapter 6, Jenna finds herself “waiting for her father to come home from work” (65) before reminding herself he’s not coming. And at his funeral, she can’t figure out “what she’s supposed to be feeling” (64). Jenna’s dry tears in Chapter 2 combined with her struggle to process her emotions in Chapters 6 to 8 develop the theme of Grief and Denial by showing how denial can hinder one’s ability to grieve properly.
Jenna’s mother also shows difficulties working through her grief. In Chapter 7, Meredith spots the “Honey Do” list on the fridge, where Jenna has crossed off the first item, fixing the leak in the roof. Meredith is so taken aback by the list that she begins “shaking with convulsive sobs” (80). Meredith explains, “Sometimes these things just catch me off guard” (80). Meredith’s grief differs from Jenna’s as Meredith is able to cry, whereas Jenna isn’t. However, they both share an expectation that Charlie will come home from work eventually, showing that part of Meredith’s grief involves denial as well.
Two important symbols make their first appearance in Chapters 6 through 10. Chapter 6 details the recurring dreams Jenna has been having about a place in town called the Ghost Tree. In these dreams, vines attempt to drag Jenna toward the tree, but Jenna “would not go to this place. Nothing, not all the vines on the face of the earth could make her go there” (62). For Jenna, the Ghost Tree symbolizes acceptance. She has not yet allowed herself to accept her father has died, and her dreams communicate this idea through the tree’s symbolism. Dreams, in general, are also an important symbol. For Jenna, her dreams symbolize her denial that still impacts her guilt, but for Michael, in Chapter 9, his dream symbolizes his guilt. In Michael’s dream, he embodies the bullet that killed Charlie Ward, and he falls toward Charlie just before waking up. This dream symbolizes how Michael carries the guilt and responsibility for Charlie’s death despite his attempts to shake it off or seek denial in his waking life.
The fallout of Charlie Ward’s death impacts the ways Jenna and Michael interact with others, and those they choose to interact with begin to build a web linking Jenna and Michael to one another. In Chapter 6, Jenna begins to notice Michael sitting on the church steps, and in Chapter 7, upon being convinced to go to the community pool by Andrea, Jenna begins to make the connection that the lifeguard her best friend has a crush on might be the same boy sitting on the church steps watching her house. Jenna feels “something deep inside her seemed to sense his pain” (78) upon observing Michael on the church steps. Because Jenna is in pain, she can tell Michael is also in pain, but there is situational irony in that the same event causes their pain, and Jenna does not know it.
Jenna’s pain compromises her relationship with her boyfriend, Jason. In Chapters 7 and 8, Jenna experiences deep anxiety and unfettered panic in his presence: “a horrible feeling, a feeling so suffocating that she thought she might pass out” (89). Jenna’s panic response to Jason is a new experience after her father’s death, and she struggles to understand its source while not alienating Jason.
While hyperventilating in the bathroom, Jenna meets Amy for the first time. Before this meeting, Jenna observes earlier in the chapter that Amy is at the movie theater alone, but then a boy comes up and makes her uncomfortable. Jenna “knew [Amy’s] reputation” (88) and “wasn’t at all surprised to see some guy casually slip in next to her” (88). Despite Jenna’s opinion of Amy, Amy manages to help Jenna through the episode. Before Amy leaves, Jenna suggests she get back to her date. Amy responds that she’s there alone. Jenna’s misconception about Amy’s situation at the movie theater develops the theme of The Influence of Reputation by showing how Jenna believed the boy harassing Amy was her date because of what she’s heard about Amy.
Amy becomes another thread linking Michael and Jenna, as Michael, too, finds peace in her presence. Michael “found himself gravitating back to Amy’s house on lonely, hot nights” (101). He wants to be more affectionate with her but doesn’t want “to admit he was using Amy. Admit that she was allowing herself to be used” (102). Michael’s complex feelings about his attraction to Amy despite her reputation develop the theme of The Influence of Reputation by showing how Michael inhibits his feelings because of his preconceived notions about Amy.
Chapter 10 brings some peace to Michael as he gets closure on two parts of his life that the shooting disrupted. First, he gets his driver’s license so “he could put an end to that small web of deceit” (106). Second, Darcy ends her relationship with Michael, relieving Michael of the burden of doing it himself or carrying on listlessly. Darcy’s vitriol toward how she perceives Michael’s visits with Amy also foregrounds the theme of The Influence of Reputation by showing how Darcy believes Michael is hooking up with Amy because of Amy’s reputation, developing the idea that reputations can lead to misconceptions about people’s intentions and actions.
