40 pages • 1 hour read
Christine Pride, Jo PiazzaWe Are Not Like Them
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 14-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary: “Jenny”
After Kevin turns himself in, Kevin’s parents put up a $50,000 bond so he won’t have to spend the night in jail. Brice, Kevin’s lawyer, thinks that if Murphy and Cameron keep their story straight, they might be fine, but since the release of the video revealing that Cameron shot first, Kevin has an opportunity for a deal. Jenny questions how she can stand by Kevin and be a single mother if he goes to jail. Jenny begs him to take the deal, but that means that he will have to testify against his partner, betraying the force.
Before the hearing, Jenny visits Chase in the NICU. Jenny is dressed nicely, ready for the hearing at the courthouse. When she arrives, she, the Murphys, Kevin, his parents, Kevin’s brother Matt, and his wife Annie enter the courthouse together. Brice thought that the DA would offer a deal, but she wants Kevin to plead not guilty first. The hearing is over quickly, and in the restroom, Jenny sees Tamara. She congratulates Jenny on the birth of her son. Jenny thanks her and continues to apologize for what has happened. Tamara doesn’t want the apology and asks what Jenny would do as a mother if something happened to her son, and Jenny responds that she would kill them. Tamara, making her point, stares back at her. Jenny confesses that she had Chase early and that she would have died if anything had happened to him. Tamara responds, “But you wouldn’t die. You’d have to keep going, and that is so much worse” (267).
When Jenny returns to the family, Brice is presenting the deal from the DA: “reckless homicide. Ten years’ probation. And it’s a felony conviction. But no prison time” (268-69), and Kevin cannot be a cop anymore. It also means he will have to testify against his partner. Kevin and Jenny leave with much to think about and go back to the hospital to see Chase.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Riley”
Riley is shopping with her mother, looking for something to wear on a date with Corey. Riley and her mother have been trying to spend more time together. Riley tells her about where she stands with Jenny and their fight. She encourages Riley by explaining that the only way to move forward is to talk and listen. Riley leaves her mom in a new shirt to meet Corey. When she sees him, all of her feelings for him come rushing back. He compliments her work, and they catch up. It all feels familiar to Riley, and she still desires him.
When she invites Corey over to her house, he brings up how she disappeared on him—breaking up with nothing but a text message after three years. She explains that just before her trip to see him in New York, she received a call from her mother explaining that Shaun had punched a white student, breaking his nose after he called Shaun a racial slur. The guy pressed charges, and Shaun got a felony conviction and 10 years’ probation, lost his full-ride scholarship to Temple University, but did not get jail time. Corey explains that he would have been there for her to go to jail and pick up her brother; she just didn’t give him a chance. Riley’s reasoning for breaking up with him was that this problem was her burden to bear, and her white boyfriend wouldn’t understand: “And if I couldn’t share this with him? If I couldn’t ask for his help at such a difficult time, how could we build a life together?” (284). When Corey asks why she didn’t share any of this with him, Riley tells him how difficult it is to “explain [her] experience in a way he would understand” (286). Like her mother, he encourages her to talk about it, even if it is uncomfortable, to give him a chance to understand. Then, they have sex, and Corey says it is “just like old times” (288). Riley wants him to stay, and she hears her grandmother’s voice in her head: “Do it, baby girl. Show him your heart.” (289).
Chapters 14-15 Analysis
In these chapters, both Jenny and Riley have to face what has been haunting them. For Jenny, it is her husband’s sentencing and Tamara, Justin’s mother, whom she runs into in the bathroom at the courthouse. As a new mother, she understands better the grief Tamara is experiencing. Again, Jenny feels torn between her husband, his actions, and her values. For Riley, it is Corey, her ex-boyfriend, whom she broke up with because of her brother’s arrest. She never told him any of this, and she had to come clean about her intentions. Like with Jenny, Riley feared that as a white man, Corey would be dismissive about her experience as a Black woman and judgmental about his brother’s arrest. After telling him this, she is relieved to hear he would have supported her and been there for her. After she has been holding on to these feelings for a year, expressing them is a relief. These two chapters put into practice talking even though it is uncomfortable. Both Jenny and Riley have uncomfortable discussions, but this talking gives them a way to move forward.
