42 pages • 1 hour read
The Story of Arthur Truluv
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Pages 164-218Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 164-178 Summary
When Lucille visits Maddy in her room, she sees the box of her mother’s belongings and asks Maddy about it; they share how they both would create miniature dollhouses and imagine the lives they would one day have, with Lucille reassuring her that “Some things come true. They might come true in ways different than we might have predicted, but some things do come true” (169). On the porch that night, Lucille, Arthur, and Maddy discuss baby names and plans for Lucille to sell her house. Arthur tells Lucille that everything is working out and there is no need to change anything right now. As they talk, Anderson shows up and tries to talk to Maddy, who begs him to leave. Arthur chases him off the property with a baseball bat. The season turns to fall, and the three of them watch the schoolchildren disembark the bus each day. Studying them, Maddy worries about making a mistake when raising a baby, to which Arthur replies, “We can’t help but make mistakes. The important thing is to keep trying. And to apologize when you need to” (178).
Pages 179-205 Summary
Maddy reads as many books as she can on childbirth and rearing, but she’s terrified of the process and just wants her mother. One night, Arthur finds her in bed reading one of the books, her eyes wide. He offers to attend Lamaze classes with her and Maddy shares what she’s learned about babies: how they can hear music from inside the womb and when they’re born, they reach for light because they think they can catch it in their hands. Arthur tells her: “I can’t participate in this like your mother would. But here’s what I can do. I can listen. I can learn with you. I can go to the doctor with you, if you’d like” (184). Maddy agrees and invites him to her next OB appointment, but Arthur thinks she has ulterior motives: both she and Lucille have been concerned about his health recently, but Arthur isn’t interested at this point: “He looks forward to life as much as he ever did. But going to doctors? He’s done with that. He’s an old man living an old man’s life” (190).
As Thanksgiving approaches, Maddy visits the college she’ll be attending in the spring and learns about the daycare where her baby will be cared for while she’s in class. She sees the dorm room she’ll share with another single mother. She’s looking forward to being a student. Lucille has planned a 14-dish Thanksgiving meal for them, and at Arthur’s prompting and Maddy’s approval, they invite Maddy’s father over for Thanksgiving dinner and he accepts. Steven brings Maddy a photo album full of pictures she’s never seen before: her mother, pregnant with her, her parents in their first apartment, and Maddy as a young child. There are no pictures of Maddy and her father. Looking at the photo causes Maddy to feel “for the first time an aching sense of compassion for her father. But also a rush of excitement for what might now finally develop between them” (205).
Pages 206-218 Summary
On a snowy mid-December day, Arthur goes to visit Nola as always. Lucille is upset with him for doing so, venting to Maddy that the visits are bad for his health. Both of them worry about him and his declining health, but Maddy disagrees, telling Lucille that Nola is present for Arthur in the cemetery: “Her spirit is strong there. He feels her, and he talks to her. I understand that” (209). While Lucille continues to complain, Maddy’s water breaks and she asks Lucille to call a cab. At the cemetery, Arthur tells Nola that he’s decided to leave everything in their will to Maddy, which he thinks Nola would approve of. He also tells her he may not be able to visit anymore because it’s become too physically difficult.
That day, Maddy gives birth to a baby girl, who she names Nola. Arthur is too sick to get out of bed, so Maddy brings baby Nola to visit him in his bedroom. Arthur tells Maddy that Nola used to wish that when people died, they could become stars in the sky and look down on those they loved; he asks Maddy to believe that’s true: “And after I die, why, you look up in the sky for two stars, real close together. That will be Nola and me. Those stars will be so close together, it’ll look like they are one, but they’ll be two” (215).
The narration jumps forward in time to when Nola is two years old and Maddy is visiting Arthur and Nola’s graves. Arthur died on December 29, 2016. Lucille still lives with Maddy in the house Arthur left her, and she’s teaching Nola to bake.
Pages 164-218 Analysis
This final section includes important relationship milestones for Lucille and Maddy. Though the three friends have successfully operated as a chosen family, Maddy and Arthur often tolerate Lucille’s quirks and proclivities. Though Maddy loves her, Maddy finds that Lucille lacks boundaries or respect for privacy, and Maddy asks Arthur for a lock for the door (180). However, Lucille and Maddy bond over something very significant: the lives they imagined they would have. Berg represents this feeling through pieces of dollhouse furniture Maddy has from her mother, and Lucille remembers creating a similar toy home for herself and shares how “it was as though I was living there already, it was like everything I wanted had come true in the future and life was just waiting for me to catch up to it” (169). Lucille calls this a child’s dream and foolish, but Maddy can relate, telling her how she “would make these little houses and I would pretend I lived there with my mother. And we were so happy” (169).
Both women used to dream through the dollhouse and would envision a life they never actually get to have. Maddy can only create this happy picture in her mind; the separation from her mother means that she will never know that true happy home. However, she can create it for herself and her own daughter. This shared experience also serves to humanize Lucille, who has often covered up her loneliness or desire for connection with activities like baking and socializing on the porch. In reality, she is grieving the loss of a life she thought she would experience. Her actual home is the tangible representation of the dollhouse she used to play with; she tries to make herself happy in a house with too many rooms, but she is deeply lonely; confiding in Arthur and Maddy that she was miserable there. While on Arthur’s porch, she feels like happiness is sitting right there with her, saying, “Look at me” and when she looks, happiness says “You’re not looking at me. You’re looking at you” (171). This helps Lucille understand that her happiness in life is up to her, even if it doesn’t look the way she anticipated.
Arthur, Lucille, and Maddy invite Steven over for dinner, and this experience opens the door for a new interpretation of The Transformative Power of Companionship and Chosen Families because there is a possibility that Maddy and her father can reconcile and grow closer. Steven’s invitation to spend time with Maddy’s chosen family is a kind, forgiving gesture on Maddy’s part. Maddy allows him to step into the life she has chosen for herself after establishing her needs and boundaries. While the narrative does not clarify his involvement in her future, this development means that it is perhaps possible for Maddy to maintain contact with her biological family. The dinner is also important because it allows Steven to give Maddy the photo album of pictures she has never seen before, which not only connects Maddy to her past and her mother but demonstrates Steven’s first attempt to confront his loss and bond with Maddy over their shared experience. In the safe and nurturing environment of Arthur’s home, the hope of renewed relationships is possible. When Arthur leaves his house and possessions to Maddy, he ensures her security and stability for the future, an act which lends deeper magnitude to their chosen family. Maddy becomes the child he was never able to have with Nola, and he is at peace with his life and his chosen family when he passes away.
This section contains the falling action and resolution of the novel, and it also flashes forward in time to reveal that Maddy has named her daughter Nola, illustrating the reach of Arthur and Nola’s legacy. The setting in this section is also important because the novel begins and ends in the same location: the cemetery. The ending also contains a sense of ambiguity: It is unclear how Arthur died, whether Maddy has been attending art school, what her relationship with her father looks like now, and how Lucille is doing. The result of this ambiguity is that it leaves open the possibility for anything to happen. In the end, Maddy is happy and she is flourishing in motherhood while continuing to honor Arthur and Nola’s legacies.
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