67 pages • 2 hours read
You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir
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Pages 198-251Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 198-229 Summary
A Friend Says Every Book Begins with an Unanswerable Question
This chapter poses the question “how to heal” (198).
Keep Moving
On Violet’s twelfth birthday, she tells her mother that she saw an ad for one of her mother’s books in the New York Times. Smith thinks about her husband’s recent move out of state and how much material he has given her for this book. He has also left them with other material, the burden and pain of his leaving.
Things I Know for Sure
Smith ruminates on the fact that her husband had a long-distance affair with a woman and now has a long-distance relationship with his children. When they visit him, he sends them home with a stack of postcards so they can write to him.
The Sparks
Smith has difficulty managing her anger at the postcards, but she wants to be able to forgive.
A Half Hour to Cry
Tired of burdening her family and friends with her heartache, Smith hires a therapist to untangle some of her feelings about her husband’s move. She tells her new therapist that she needs a half hour to cry. When her therapist asks how she is doing, Smith speaks at length about how her children are getting through it. The therapist reminds her that it is time to think about how the divorce and move have affected her, not just her children.
A Note on Betrayal
The affair made it easy to process right and wrong in the divorce, but Smith finds nothing easy in watching her husband’s betrayal of their children.
An Offering
Smith recalls the book The Little Red Hen, which she read to her children. When the hen asks others for help and they refuse, she declares that she will do it herself.
Grenade
Smith wonders why she did not bring up the postcard in the early days of counseling with her husband. Then she understands that she was afraid. Mentioning the postcard meant acknowledging the end of her marriage.
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
On a road trip, Smith and her friend discuss the difficulty of relationships with men who claim to be feminists but do not adhere to an equal division of labor in the home. They decide that a good partnership means both people get to be themselves and prioritize their work.
Sad-Ass Divorce Dream
Smith dreams that she is watching her husband berate his mother. Smith stands up and tells him that he is not a good person and that she is done with him.
When It Rains, It Pours
Smith’s lawyer and dentist retire, and now she must explain her divorce and subsequent teeth-grinding to two strangers.
About the Body
When her arrythmia begins acting up again, Smith visits the doctor. She explains the way her heart is skipping beats, and the doctor asks if she has been experiencing any new stresses.
I’m All Yours
Rhett’s mood dips while dealing with his father’s move. Smith tells him that she is all his, and he responds, “I’m all yours, too” (212).
Fathomed
Smith struggles to shut off her anxiety and worry. More than anything, she worries about the impact everything will have on her children.
An Offering
Smith’s husband has turned out to be her teacher, instructing her on grief and suffering.
This Moment Isn’t for You
Violet has difficulty managing her feelings about the January 6 insurrection. Smith tells her that when she was little, she used to sleep on the floor next to her crib whenever she was worried. That night, Smith feels a sharp pain inside.
Tell-Mine
Smith wonders how she can write a memoir when she is still living her experience.
The Archive I Have
Old social media posts remind Smith of the joy of daily life with her children, such when Violet names a raccoon key chain “Darkness.”
Some People Ask
Smith grapples with the frequent question of whether she believes the divorce has made her children more resilient. She recalls her husband using this as an excuse and rages against the question.
Because You Can’t Misplace Your Earlobe
Rhett needs something he can hold and tug on when he misses his mother while visiting his father. He pulls on his earlobe whenever he thinks of her.
Hidden Valentines
Before visiting his father, Rhett places love notes to his mother around the house. Smith tugs on her earlobe.
A Friend Says Every Book Begins with an Unanswerable Question
In this chapter, Smith questions whether she can continue to live with the mystery her husband has left behind.
Home
Smith has a sudden realization that her children’s father’s home is a vacation home.
Bittersweet
While her children are away visiting their father, Smith returns to the cabin in southeastern Ohio to write. She finds a legal pad with notes from every part of her history with her children. She notices that her husband is largely absent from her notes and journal entries. She rarely wrote about him.
Well, He Should Know
A friend asks whether Smith’s husband’s move is legal.
Pages 230-251 Summary
But Here’s the Thing, Walt
Smith responds to the poet Walt Whitman’s famous line from Song of Myself—“Very well then, I contradict myself / (I am large, I contain multitudes)”—by declaring that she is exhausted from having to contain so much.
An Offering
Smith remarks that her husband became her teacher, providing lessons in pain. Smith feels it is time to find a new instructor.
More Sad-Ass Divorce Dreams, or the Little Red Hen in Reverse
In a new dream, Smith’s house is flooded. As she tries to clean it up, voices ask if they can help. Each time, she insists upon handling it herself.
The Slideshow
Rhett shows his mom and sister a digital presentation that he made for school. Smith discovers that her son has written a biography of himself that defines his family as just the three of them. She feels sad at how meager the names look on the screen. She tells her son she is proud of him, and he returns the compliment.
A Note on the Author’s Intention
Smith has not yet learned to forgive, but she hopes to forgive someday soon.
Nostalgia
While Smith and Rhett look at old photos, Rhett declares that he wishes he could go back to earlier days when things were simpler.
The Play
In this version of the play, the woman watches another play—her boyfriend’s production about an affair. She does not notice the foreshadowing.
A Pantoum, a Villanelle, a Ghazal
Life is like a repetitive poem. Certain words, places, and ideas repeat themselves. Smith notices how she passes meaningful landmarks as she carries out her daily duties. On her way to the dentist, she passes her daughter’s pediatrician. As she picks up pizza, she passes the marriage counselor’s office where she and her husband tried to fix their marriage.
Disposable
Smith throws away a box of disposable cameras without developing the film. She feels her husband disappearing from her life entirely, and she grieves the loss of someone who shared so many memories with her.
Ghost Story
Slowly, Smith begins to feel less like a ghost or like she is haunting her own home.
When the Metaphor is Right There
Rhett becomes invested in a book series about a boy who must complete a quest to remove a curse from his father. In the series, the father has been turned into a ghost, and the boy must complete the question to turn his father human again. Each time the boy makes progress toward healing his father, he loses a piece of himself.
Icarus Flew Before He Fell
Smith wonders what her children will say in therapy when they are adults. She questions what type of people they would have grown up to be if the divorce had not happened.
About the Body
Smith’s therapist points out that Smith can identify the emotions she is feeling, but she never displays them outwardly or allows herself to experience them fully.
The Contract
Another therapist named Caroline explains to Smith that humans have unwritten and unspoken contracts with one another. She asks Smith to consider the type of contract she has with her husband. Caroline proposes that people are never truly free from the contract until both people heal. She suggests that Smith is still holding onto the rope that connects her to her husband and that it is time to let it go.
Pages 198-251 Analysis
In Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, the author describes how grief comes in waves. There are many parallels between Smith and Didion’s memoirs, and the final section of the work will directly reference magical thinking. Didion presents grief as a non-linear experience. It rises, falls, creeps in at unexpected moments, and disappears at times when one would expect to feel it sharply. Smith’s experience with divorce is similar. After her divorce, she immerses herself in moments of joy and liberation, but she also feels profound sadness, anger, and nostalgia. Before Smith can fully engage in self-discovery, she must move through all stages of grief. Her therapist suggests that Smith is holding herself back from experiencing the complete breadth of her emotions. Smith talks about her anger, but she does not appear angry or exhibit any signs of this intense emotion. When she is asked how she is doing, she responds with how her children are doing. Patriarchal Expectations in Contemporary Marriage have conditioned Smith to suppress her own emotions and needs and to elevate those of others, leaving her disconnected from her own identity.
When her husband moves nearly 500 miles away with The Addressee, Smith’s anger becomes more palpable. Her emotions are centered on what her husband has done to their children by abandoning them. She worries about what his absence will do to them and how they will feel about growing up without their father around. Smith experiences Divorce as Loss, and her anger is an important part of the grieving process. To move forward, she must be angry for herself, not just for her children.
Her therapist tells her that every relationship involves an unspoken contract. She suggests that Smith is still walking around with a ghost behind her—the shadow of her old self that is unwilling to deal with her feelings. Because she does not allow herself to experience her emotions, her body begins to show signs of stress. Her therapist proposes that Smith is holding onto a rope that keeps her connected to her husband and her pain. She must drop the rope and sever the connection.
One of the connections that still ties Smith to her husband is memory. She is not sure how to approach happy memories of her husband and her family. Because he was the shared witness to her experiences, she feels a deep sense of loss. She also mourns the love she had for her husband and is not sure what to do with the material of that love: “I loved that person. I loved him. Where does that go?” (240).
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