Ordinary Grace

Later that evening, Ruth Drum says she’s going for a walk around the block. She stays gone for a long time and the family is worried. Jake says he saw Ruth “walking along the railroad tracks headed toward the trestle outside of town” (221). Frank and Jake take flashlights and go and try to find her. Frank and Jake attempt to reassure each other that their mother is fine, with Frank saying, “In this way we reassured ourselves because Ariel’s death had shattered any sense of normality, any firm sense that what any future moment held was predictable” (222).

The boys find their mother standing on the same trestle where so many of the book’s other encounters have taken place. Frank sends Jake back to the house, to tell the adults where they are. Frank and his mother talk, with Ruth asking if the trestle is the spot where Frank first saw Ariel’s corpse. Franks confirms that it is. Frank admits that Ruth’s behavior has been scaring him lately; Ruth, looking out at the river while talking, says that she can’t talk to Nathan, her husband, anymore because he makes her too angry. She goes on to say that she believes that “‘there is no God.