The principal asks the school to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance, and this time, Evie joins in. She doesn’t want “life everlasting” according to Shirley’s belief in the Bible; she wants the present. Evie had run into Mira the previous day, who wanted to know where the former had been. Following the incident with her father, Evie missed the first meet and has been actively avoiding the gym. Evie told Mira that she wouldn’t be attending track anymore.

Evie hears her mother cry every night. Her father is still in the hospital, with a bandaged wrist, and must attend regular sessions with a physical therapist and a psychiatrist. He is on medication that makes him sleepy but acts more like his old self when he is awake.

It is late December, and Anna has been saving for a suitcase with wheels for when she leaves for Simon’s Rock. She is determined to attend, and asks Evie about track, suggesting that it will free her too. Evie takes out her running shoes and thinks about Mira, Toswiah and her sister, Lulu, and Anna—whom she feels closer to these days. She places the running shoes in her school knapsack, uncertain if track will actually free her but realizing it is the only thing she has.