93 pages • 3 hours read
Joyce Carol OatesA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
It is March. Matt sends Ursula an email: “Dear Ursula, Thank you for the other day. Your friend Matt” (154).
Matt writes another email to Ursula. He wonders if their meeting on the ravine had a purpose beyond chance.
Ursula replies, agreeing that everything has a purpose.
Matt writes that their hiking together felt oddly familiar and comforting: “That was how I felt. With you. Hiking back down and not needing to talk, like there needed nothing to be said” (156). He deletes his message without sending it.
In a flashback, Matt is back at home just after his hike with Ursula. He tells Pumpkin he was not really going to commit suicide; “[e]ven if Pumpkin didn’t believe, Pumpkin trusted him” (158).
By Joyce Carol Oates