Rules

“Usually in summer I do lots of things by myself because my best friend, Melissa, spends the whole vacation in California with her dad. This year’ll be different, though. The girl next door and I can do all my favorite summer things together: swimming at the pond, watching TV, and riding bikes. We could even send midnight messages from our windows, using flashlights and Morse code, like next-door friends do in books.”

Catherine is a dreamer. Discontent with the life she has, she has imagined a stellar life that includes an imaginary best friend next door—because she has yet to meet the new girl moving in next door—to take the place of her best friend, Melissa. Catherine pines for Melissa as she notes how long it takes for the mail to travel across the country and how expensive phone calls are. While most schoolkids long for the excitement and liberty of summer, Catherine feels trapped, abandoned by her best friend, and stuck with her brother. During the summer vacation from school, for Catherine’s parents, everything is business as usual: Catherine babysits David whenever her parents must work. Her father tells her that they cannot afford any special trip, unlike Melissa’s father, who is taking her to Disneyland.

“Sometimes I wish someone would invent a pill so David’d wake up on morning without autism, like someone waking from a long coma, and he’d say, ‘Jeez, Catherine, where have I been?’ and he’d be a regular brother like Melissa has—a brother who’d give back as much as he took, who I could joke with, even fight with. Someone I could yell at and he’d yell back, and we’d keep going and going until we’d both yelled ourselves out. But there’s no pill, and our quarrels fray instead of knot, always ending in him crying and me sorry for hurting him over something he can’t help.” 

This quote epitomizes Catherine’s frustration with her brother. She knows he will never be an average person. This is a continual weight upon her. It is a double burden because he will never be a playmate or an equal, but always someone she must care for without losing her temper, which results in David falling to the floor, curling in a ball, and sobbing.

“Looking closer can make something beautiful. Sometimes I can change how I feel about something by drawing it. Drawing makes me find the curves, the shadows, the ins and outs, and the beautiful parts. I solved my hating snakes by drawing their scales, tiny and silvery, overlapping and overlapping, until all I saw was how perfect they were. Can’t say I’d want a snake crawling across me, but I don’t have to run screaming to Dad every time I see a garden snake now.” 

This quote begins with one of the many “rules” Catherine has established for David. Her description of love of drawing reveals the depth of her artistic nature. For Catherine, drawing is a form of self-expression, communication, investigation, and personal outcry. Her ability to draw objects, creatures, and people allows her to cope with the world around her which feels unpleasant to Catherine.

“The bell jangles again. I look up to see Mrs. Morehouse in the doorway, watching me. She crosses her arms over her stomach. Mrs. Frost drops her magazine and even the receptionist has stopped typing, her hands held above her keyboard like a conductor waiting to cue a symphony. ‘Jason insisted I come back,’ Mrs. Morehouse says, ‘and tell you he likes the picture you’re drawing.’ She turns to leave. I look out the window to Jason at the top of the ramp. ‘Wait!’ Lifting my page, I pull gently so it’ll tear neatly. Colored pencils fall off my lap, scattering and rolling across the floor, but I don’t bother with them. ‘If he likes it, he can have it. Please tell him the dot in the window is a flashlight.’” 

This quote captures a pivotal moment of trust and transformation in the relationship of Catherine, Jason, and his mother, Mrs. Morehouse. Mrs. Morehouse is both extremely protective of Jason—stopping Catherine short when she sees her drawing a picture of Jason without permission—and yearning for his continued learning and development. After the embarrassing moment when Mrs. Morehouse confronts Catherine, it is particularly surprising that Jason insists his mother go back into the occupational therapy waiting room and tell Catherine that he liked her drawing of a house. Catherine responds by overlooking the rather hostile initial confrontation with Mrs. Morehouse and giving her drawing of the house to her to share with Jason. Based upon her dream of flashing Morse Code from her window at night, the inclusion of a flashlight in the drawing symbolically indicates a desire for communication. It’s worth noting that, if Catherine had not attracted the angry attention of Jason and his mother, the relationship between the two adolescents might never have happened.

“Dad always has an excuse: traffic, last-minute customers at the pharmacy who’ve run out of their prescriptions and can’t wait until morning, a salesman stopping by with drug samples. But I think even if things went just right, Dad would still be late. It’s part of him, like his brown hair or his glasses or his name tag and lab coat. I gave up expecting Dad to be on time years ago, but David thinks everything a person says is the truth. Dad works all the extra hours he can, even on Saturdays, so Mom can afford to work part-time at home. She used to have an office downtown, but David got kicked out of day care, so now she runs her tax-preparation business from our spare bedroom. The good part of having Mom home is she’s around to talk to and can take me places, but the bad part is David must come wherever we go, and sometimes I have to babysit while she meets with clients or makes phone calls.”

Catherine details the benign captivity she experiences as well as the disjointed nature of her family. It is apparent from her description that her father, whether out of a desire to avoid interacting with his family or just absorption in his work, is not present. Her mother juggles work and running the house, often calling on Catherine to step into the void and care for David. Catherine scarcely describes any degree of personal dialogue between her parents. Distinct from Kristi, whose parents are physically apart but not divorced, Catherine’s parents are together but emotionally separate.

“‘Jason is wondering if he could have your name in his book?’ Mrs. Morehouse watches his hand move card to card. ‘So he can talk to you. Would you mind, Catherine?’ It seems weird to think of my name in some boy’s communication book, but I don’t know how I could say no, so I say, ‘Okay.’ She takes a little card and a pen from her purse. Watching her, I wonder how that’d feel, to have to wait for someone to make a word before I could use it. And to have all my words lying out in the open, complete strangers able to walk by and see everything that mattered to me, without even knowing my name.”

Catherine begins to have a deeper understanding of Jason’s isolation. Her willingness to allow Mrs. Morehead to put her name in Jason’s book opens a door of communication between them. The first thing Catherine becomes aware of is the profound limitation of Jason’s ability to communicate. While the communication book is a lifeline, when Catherine first sees it, it is quite limited.

“At home I line Jason’s blank cards on my desk, ready to draw. But choosing words is harder than I thought. Seven white squares, full of possibility. I look around my bedroom for ideas: from the checkered rug on my floor to the calendar of Georgia O’Keeffe flower paintings Dad bought me at the art museum he took me to last summer. That’s my dream—to be an artist and have people gasp when they see my paintings, like I do on the first day of each new month. I have a tiny clothespin at the bottom of the calendar pages, so I don’t cheat and peek ahead—I want each month's flower to be a surprise.”

Given the privilege of creating seven new entries for Jason’s communication book, Catherine quickly recognizes the magnitude of the task. She does not know what he wants to discuss, so the new words must originate from her world. Catherine’s artistic bent and O’Keeffe calendar are subtly compared to Jason’s need for new ways to communicate and the blank cards Catherine is creating for his communication book. The implication is that these young people are budding forth like spring flowers.

“I hunt through my stack of cards to find the word I want good luck for the most. The last card I made, the one with a drawing of a girl’s hand raised in a ‘hi’ wave. Friend. ‘I have a new neighbor who’s my age,’ I say. ‘I haven’t met her yet, but I’m hoping she’s nice.’ He smiles. Catherine. Friend. ‘I do have friends—my best friend is Melissa—but no one that lives near me. My neighborhood is mostly old people and families with little kids. Well, except the boy who lives on the corner. He’s my age but he—’ Stinks a big one!!! I put that card as far from my name as possible. ‘You’ll have to be careful when you use this one. The last time I yelled this, I had to sit in the front seat of the bus.’ No. I mean. Catherine. My. Friend. My lips feel dry. I lick them, though Mom always tells me not to. ‘Sure,’ I say, even if I think of us more as clinic friends than always friends. Seeing Jason’s finger on the word, I wonder why he didn’t already have it.

Catherine soon becomes the default creator of new words for Jason’s communication book, opening new avenues of discussion for Jason. As she loads the word cards into his book, Catherine reviews how each word is reflected in her life. This incident is repeated several times in the narrative: Jason points out a word or phrase that Catherine does not realize he means to apply directly to her. In each case she is innocent of his deeper feelings toward her. The parallel here is that, as Jason has a newly acquired word to expand his world, Catherine is encountering a first-time experience as well—the affection of a boy. She is unsure of how to respond to these new realities, demonstrating her emotional shock with the distraction of licking her dry lips. She does not consciously make the connection: the new presence of the “friend” card in the communication book corresponds to Jason’s first acquisition of a friend.

“‘Are you busy?’ a girl’s voice asks. [...] ‘I saw Kristi coming up the walk,’ Mom says, smiling. ‘Catherine, I have one more call to make. Could you keep an eye on David for a few more minutes? Then I’ll take over, I promise.’ [...] ‘Come in!’ I offer my chair, but Kristi sits on the edge of my desk, crossing her feet at the ankles. ‘Are you busy?’ she asks. ‘No!’ Seeing her up close, I know Kristi will be popular. Not only for her straight brown hair, parted off-center, shining down to her elbows. Or because she looks just right, even wearing frayed jean shorts and a T-shirt. Kristi radiates ‘cool’...” 

Meeting Kristi causes Catherine immediately to be entranced and wary. She is wary because Kristi is very pretty, stylish, and self-assured. Despite her recognition of the distinction between herself and Kristi, Catherine is excited at the presence of this exotic new person who may be her close companion. The double question, “Are you busy,” implies that this is the sort of query Kristi knows to ask of her mother, a busy person, when she wants to talk.

“‘Can you date yet?’ Kristi asks. I shrug. ‘I know boys from the school and church, but no one I’d want to go somewhere with—by myself. Well, not really by myself, because he’d be there, too.’ Oh, shut up, I tell my tongue. ‘You should ask that boy you drew on a date,’ Kristi says. ‘What’s his name?’ I shift my shoulders, pretending I need to stretch so she won’t notice I’m squirming. Is there any harm in telling his name? They’re not likely to meet. Jason doesn’t even go to the same school I do. ‘Jason.’ ‘My boyfriend and I broke up before I moved,’ Kristi says. ‘But I think Ryan likes me.’” 

On Catherine’s first visit to Kristi’s room, Catherine is taken by the orderliness, fashion, and femininity of everything she sees. In her perception, Kristi’s room, like Kristi, is nearly perfect. Kristi asks Catherine about dating and relates her own romantic past and prospects, indicating the significance of romantic relationships to her. Her reference to Ryan as a possible love interest indicates the degree to which she defines herself by being in a relationship with a boy. Such concerns are far beyond Catherine’s interest and experience.

“‘Jason missed you today,’ Mom says, and my happiness deflates like a balloon with the smallest tear. ‘He said that?’ ‘Well, actually, what he said was, ‘Tell Catherine all gone stinks a big one.’ Mom looks over the top of her glasses, giving the long, what-have-you-been-up-to-young-lady? stare. ‘Who’s Jason?’ Dad says from the doorway, a teasing smirk on his face. ‘A boy at David’s OT place.’ I watch Dad’s eyebrows shoot upward, and I roll my eyes. ‘He’s just a boy. It’s not like he’s a boy or anything.’”

Catherine skipped a regular trip to her brother’s occupational therapy session—and thus the chance to see Jason—when she went to Kristi’s house. The excited happiness she feels after spending time in Kristi’s orbit is deflated when her mother tells her that Jason missed her. More than defeating her momentary happiness, her mother remarks about Jason’s exact statement, which she knows is a reference to adventurous words Catherine has introduced to his vocabulary: “stinks a big one.” Catherine’s need to indicate there is no romantic air between herself and Jason contrasts Kristi’s intent focus on romantic relationships earlier in the chapter.

“Running hard now, my feet pound the tar, the flap of seagull wings as loud as my breath in my ears. People are looking, but I try not to see them as real, just statues to run past. At the final turn, I see Mrs. Morehouse standing in the entrance to the parking lot, her palm out like a traffic cop, keeping cars from pulling in. I dash past the mailbox, the EXIT HERE sign, past Mrs. Morehouse. Leaning into it, faster, harder, my feet slap the pavement, until it comes—that weightless, near-to-flying fastness. ‘Do you feel it?’ I yell to the back of Jason’s head. But if he answers, it’s only in his head. I run all the way to the clinic ramp. ‘How was that?’ Awesome! I bend over to steady my breath. When I straighten up, I see not only is everyone in the waiting room standing at the clinic windows watching us, but a family on the sidewalk is staring, shopping bags in hand. And in several of the restaurant windows surrounding the parking lot, people have stopped eating to watch. Most of them have their mouths dropped open. Jason waves.”

At Jason’s request, Catherine walks him outside the clinic in his wheelchair. Soon he convinces her to push him at high speed, running around the asphalt parking lot and through an area where there are many tourists and restaurants serving lunch. Mrs. Morehead’s response is interesting in that, while she does not stop the runners, she stands at the entrance of the lot, preventing incoming traffic. For the runner and passenger, this is an unbelievably exhilarating bonding event.

“I study the tomato closely, drawing it in my mind. It’s so smooth I’d need dense color, layered until not even a flicker of white paper showed through. Along, each of my colored pencils would be too bright, but blended, I could make it look real. ‘People usually think tomatoes are red,’ I say, ‘but they’re more red-orange with yellow-orange streaks. And there’s even the smallest hint of purple here in the creases.’ ‘Purple?’ He looks over, his forehead line with concern. ‘Is it mold?’ It feels stupid to be jealous of a tomato, but sometimes I think Dad likes them more than he likes David and me. ‘No, it’s just a shadow.’” 

This quote contrasts the perceptive awareness of Catherine and the obliviousness of her father. While her father is incredibly invested in raising tomatoes, even to the exclusion of his children, he is not aware of their intricate beauty and texture. Catherine at this point, refuses to confront his father about his detachment. Her insight into what would be required to accurately portray tomatoes with colored pencils is revealing of the depth of her artistic awareness and abilities.

“‘I wish my parents would get back together and be happy.’ She turns to me, her eyes worried. ‘Do you think that’s two wishes or one?’ ‘One.’ ‘Your turn. What’s your wish?’ I look down between the raft boards and imagine my always-wish, my fingers reaching through the perfect top of David’s head, finding the broken places in his brain, turning knobs or flipping switches. All his autism wiped clean. But saying that wish brings trouble. [...] I drew a pretend brother in the ‘My Family’ picture to be put out in the hallway for open house. [...] I made him older so he could stick up for me. But I had to draw the picture over and visit the guidance counselor instead of going to music. ‘Why is it in fairy tales, wishes always backfire?’ I ask.” 

Lying on a floating deck in the middle of her beloved pond, Catherine and Kristi express their dearest wishes. Their wounded fragility is apparent in both wishes. Kristi frets that her wish might be invalidated because it is two rather than one. This indicates an awareness on her part that parents can live together unhappily. Catherine’s wish reveals above all a desire for her family to be made whole by her brother being a different person. She also reveals the power and influence of adults criticizing her admission of that desire, as she reports having been sent to the guidance counselor in the third grade for portraying David as a typical, protective older brother. In an act of educational censorship, she also had to redo her family picture.

“Jason positions his hand on the joystick, and the chair surges—a foot forward, then back. Catherine. Walk. Outside. Me, too. ‘You want to take a walk? Outside?’ I glance at his mother. ‘With me?’ ‘Take my cell phone.’ She opens her purse. ‘Call here if you need help. The phone number is on those business cards at the reception desk.’ The receptionist circles the phone number on the card. But even with the number, the cell phone, two blank cards, and a pencil in my pocket, I don’t feel prepared. What if I can’t help him? Or he needs something, and I can’t understand him?”

Newly empowered with a motorized wheelchair, Jason asks Catherine to venture outside the treatment center again. The chief irony here is that Jason is the one unafraid of venturing out in the world in a way he never has before with the friend he adores regardless of his abilities. Catherine, on the other hand, is tremendously insecure and reluctant. Catherine has helped fuel Jason’s new abilities by greatly enhancing his communication book. His ability to communicate mirrors his new capacity to travel independently. For her part, Catherine has never walked with a boy whom she is not responsible for guiding and protecting.

“At the empty bench closest to the wharf, I sit on the very edge of the wooden seat and watch Kristi growing tinier the farther she walks down the pathway. Jason taps, and I tear my focus away from Kristi passing the last streetlight at the edge of the park. Catherine. Pretty. Today. I nod. ‘It’s a very pretty day.’ Jason touches my arm. Catherine. Pretty. My neck feels prickly. I rub it, looking down to a frill of seaweed, bits of rope, and a broken lobster trap caught between the huge rocks at the water’s edge. What does he mean? Is he being nice or telling me he likes me? When things get confusing, make a joke. ‘No.’ I cross my eyes at him. ‘I’m a dork. Jason doesn’t smile. ‘We should get back. Speech Woman will be coming out to get you.’ But Jason doesn’t circle his fingers on the joystick. He turns to a new page in his communication book. My birthday party. Do you want to come?”

In this passage, Catherine learns important things about herself and about Jason. Walking on the beach with Jason in his wheelchair, Catherine sees Kristi and avoids allowing herself to be seen with Jason. Jason, unaware that Catherine dodged her neighbor, tells Catherine that she is pretty. When she must acknowledge the compliment, she is flustered and responds by making a joke and a funny face. Jason asks Catherine to come to his birthday party. Catherine is confronted with her own emotional weakness—fearing the opinion of her would-be friend—and implicitly insulting a boy she likes who is quite taken with her. Ironically, the boredom of summer Catherine feared has become a summer of awakening and challenge.

“I turn the music off. ‘Why’d you do that?’ Kristi asks. As I lay the posters back on the floor, I hear a car door slam outside. David is gone from my room so fast my calendar flutters in the breeze he makes running past. ‘Ready to go, sport?’ I hear dad call—late again. ‘You’re no fun.’ Kristi flops back onto my rug. Behind my eyes, I feel the sizzle of tears. I want to be fun, but— ‘I don’t like when people make David look stupid.’ ‘I asked him to dance. How is that making him look stupid? He liked it, didn’t he?’ Her marker squeaks, scribbling hard strokes. Kneeling beside her, I uncap the green marker. ‘Did your mom say you can only go to the dance with Ryan if I go, too?’ ‘I thought you said you couldn’t go.’ ‘I can’t.’ ‘Then it doesn’t matter,’ she says, not looking at me.”

Lying on her bedroom floor, making posters for a community dance, Catherine grows anxious and angry when Kristi—who continually pleads with Catherine to attend the dance—turns on music and begins to dance with David. He steps on their art supplies while he dances. Alone when David leaves the room, the girls each express frustration with the other. Catherine’s anxiety comes from the actual embarrassment of her brother dancing with Kristi—which she perceived as Kristi making fun of David—and the potential embarrassment of dancing in public. Kristi, who is new to the community and insecure, is frustrated because Catherine cannot fulfill the role of social butterfly. Each of the girls wanted a next-door new girlfriend, though each desired a different kind of friend than they received.

“I mean. Do you want to come? Dance. Me. I look up from Jason’s book. He’s watching my face, his eyes serious. ‘I can’t.’ Why? I stare at the word card with its big question mark. Are? You. Embarrassed. About. Me. ‘Of course not!’ I hear Jason pound his cards, but I can’t look. I brush crumbs off David’s shirt into my cupped hand. ‘I’m just a horrible dancer. Terrible. In fact, I’m so bad I even have a rule against it. No dancing unless I’m alone in my room or it’s pitch-black dark.’ Jason makes a loud, rumbling sound. RULE. Stupid. Excuse. My breath catches. Everyone in the kitchen has stopped to look at us, except David, who pushes back his chair. ‘My rules aren’t stupid,” I say quietly, ‘or excuses.’ Yes. Excuse. I. Just. Like. Music. He scowls. And. You. Ramming the joystick forward, Jason whirrs out of the kitchen, past David opening a cupboard door.”

Sitting in his wheelchair in his kitchen during his birthday party, Jason asks Catherine to attend the community dance with him. Catherine is monitoring David, who is grazing on refreshments. Stunned by the invitation, she tries to decline. Jason confronts her about being embarrassed by him, a truth she denies. At the same moment, she is actively trying to prevent David from embarrassing her. Jason is angered by her refusal and abandons her in the kitchen. This is a first-time experience for each of them and particularly painful for Jason, who has openly revealed his feelings for Catherine. She has consistently been more reserved and cautious.

“‘Fix it!’ David screams. ‘When someone is upset, it’s not a good time to bring up your own problems!’ I scream back. ‘Why don’t you understand? No toys in the fish tank! Chew with your mouth closed! Don’t open or close doors at other people’s houses!’ David drops to the floor and wraps his arms over his knees. ‘Trash goes in the garbage can,’ he says, between sobs. ‘That’s the rule.’ He’s crying so hard, his whole body shakes. I get David’s cassette from the trash, but it’s too broken. ‘I can’t fix it.’ Tears fill my eyes. I walk over and kneel beside him. Circling his knees and shoulders with my arms, I lay my chin on David’s hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I’m sorry, Toad.’”

After Jason’s party, Catherine realizes she disappointed both Kristi and Jason. When David brings her a cassette he has irrevocably broken and insists that she repair it, Catherine loses her temper and begins to shout at her brother, going through her list of rules she made for him. Knowing he is being criticized, David falls to the floor, rolls into a ball, and sobs, continuing to recite his rules. Recognizing that only she can redeem the moment, Catherine kneels and comforts her brother.

“‘Catherine, next time, you need to plan better,’ Dad says. ‘I can’t leave work for something like this.’ I watch David jumping, his shadow hands fluttering. ‘You take David to the video store every time he has OT.’ ‘That’s different.’ ‘Different because it’s him?’ Dad huffs, turning to me. ‘David needs—’ ‘I know what he needs! Believe me!’ I push my way past Dad, not even caring that I’m yelling. ‘Maybe he does need you more than me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need anything at all.’”

After asking Jason to come to the dance with her, Catherine calls her father at his drugstore and commands him to purchase a replacement cassette and a new player and come home. She insists that her father take David and her to the dance. This is a watershed moment for Catherine. Having apologized to David for her unhelpful anger, she at last confronts her father about ignoring her needs and using David as an excuse. Catherine reveals that David’s special needs do not preclude the fact that she has needs also, needs that her father is ignoring.

“Most people say if you tell a wish it won’t come true. But I don’t think wishes work like that. I don’t believe there’s some bad-tempered wish-fairy with a clipboard, checking off whether or not you’ve told. Oops! You told your wish. No new bike for you! But it’s a long shot I’ll get my wish, so even if there is a fairy in charge of telling, it won’t matter. ‘I wish everyone had the same chances,’ I say. ‘Because it stinks a big one that they don’t. What about you? What did you wish for?’ ‘Grape soda.’ I can’t help smiling. ‘You wished for grape soda?’ He doesn’t answer, and I pull my hand from my pocket. Taking one of his fluttering hands, I wrap his fingers tightly around a dollar. ‘Wish granted, Toad.’” 

Standing in the entrance to the social hall with the dance going on, Catherine and David observe the flickering lights. David tells Catherine they should make a wish. While David’s wish is simple, Catherine’s wish is vast and encompassing—that all human beings should have the same opportunities. Catherine’s wish at this moment, one focused on the well-being of others, is contrasted to the first wish she expressed on the pond: that her brother could be relieved of his condition. This reveals the growing depth of Catherine’s character and her understanding of the nature of human yearning.

“I kneel to be at his eye level. ‘I see how kids stare at David and it hurts me, because I know what they’re thinking. Or even worse, they don’t look at him, just around, like he’s invisible. It makes me mad, because it’s mean and it makes me invisible, too.’ Jason watches my face, but his hand moves to give me room to reach the last empty pockets of his communication book. Hidden. ‘I didn’t tell Kristi everything about you. I didn’t tell her about your wheelchair or your communication book. I didn't know how she’d react. I should’ve because you’re my friend, but it got harder and harder.’ I drop my gaze to the tiled floor. ‘No, that’s an excuse, too. The real truth is I was scared what she might think of me, not you.’”

Eventually Jason appears at the dance. Soon afterward, Kristi and Ryan appear, and Catherine introduces them to Jason, apologizing for being so reluctant to tell Kristi about Jason. When Catherine and Jason are alone, she opens her heart in the quote above, at last completely honest and transparent in what she is sharing. This plays on the title of the chapter, which implies that at last there is a full, open conversation between the two now that both have spoken from the heart.

“Before I climb into bed, I circle the date on my calendar when Melissa will be home. I have so much to tell her, not the least of which is I danced with a boy who isn’t even related to me, and I liked it. And on Tuesday, I’m not bringing my backpack to the clinic, only me. If Jason needs a word I’ll make it, but I’ll wait for him to ask. I lift my shade and imagine a beam flashing from Kristi’s dark, counting dashes and dots. A-r-e y-o-u t-h-e-r-e? But there is no light. Her window stays dark, only the streetlamps and the stars shine, white brightness. The tiniest knock comes, and my door creaks open. David stands framed in the light from the living room. ‘No toys in the fish tank.’”

Alone in her room after the dance, Catherine reflects on the changes in her relationships. She acknowledges she is at a new place with Jason. Saying she will not bring her backpack implies that she is not going to try to steer their conversation and manage their time together, that she is open to Jason as an equal. Though she still wishes she and Kristi could interact, Catherine’s comments about no lights implies that there is no accessible communication between them. David’s quiet comment about “no toys in the fish tank” means he has dropped something into the fishbowl, something that always causes Catherine to rescue the fish and spend time with him. His comment is an expression of David’s affection for his sister and desire to interact with her.