Redhead by the Side of the Road

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-8

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 7 Summary

After his morning run, Micah decides to skip showering and shaving, leaving him more time for breakfast. He tries to find more ways to indulge himself but soon realizes he does not have much entertainment. He decides to walk to the free-book place, realizing how long it’s been since he’s read. He compares himself to a slug.

Outside, paramedics are wheeling Luella away on a stretcher. Luella’s husband, Donnie, tells Micah that Luella “took a turn” (140). Micah offers him a ride to the hospital, but Donnie says he’ll manage. Micah observes that Luella is conscious and tells Donnie to reach out if he needs anything. As the ambulance pulls away, Micah notices Brink outside the used clothing store across the street. Micah asks what he’s doing but doesn’t approach. Brink explains that he needed a change of clothes. Micah invites Brink in for coffee, and Brink accepts. Micah feels excited that he might be able to reunite Lorna and Brink. He calculates the best way to communicate with Lorna.

Brink tells Micah he’s been staying at a motel and taking cabs around the city. Micah asks if Brink has looked for work, but Brink hasn’t. Micah tells Brink that he’s going to call Lorna. Brink acts upset at this, but Micah can tell Brink has had a hard week living on his own and is relieved. Micah explains how worried Lorna is, which captures Brink’s attention. Micah dials Lorna and tells her he’s putting Brink on the line, but Brink refuses to talk. Lorna tells Micah she’s on her way. Brink worries about what she said, if she’s angry, and whether his dad is with her. Micah says she’s just concerned.

While they wait for Lorna, Brink admits that he feels like everyone is critical of him all the time. Later, he asks what led to Micah and Lorna’s breakup, guessing that Lorna was the one who “ditched” Micah. Micah doesn’t say. While Micah cooks them lunch, Donnie calls to let Micah know that Luella is breathing better now. After hanging up, Micah regrets not asking more questions about her condition. He feels that talking to people is like trying to work a crane game with unwieldy controls.

Brink confesses that he got caught cheating in college. He bought a term paper. The dean told Brink that he would have to go home and confess to his parents what he did, then the dean would sit down with them as a family to discuss how to move forward. After going home, Brink couldn’t muster the courage to confess. Micah comforts Brink with a story from his own youth about cheating in school, saying that Brink’s parents are human too and likely aren’t perfect as well.

Lorna and Roger arrive. Micah greets them and exchanges introductions with Roger. Lorna immediately throws her arms around Brink while Roger stays back, more aloof. Lorna fusses over Brink’s unshaven face and whether he’s eaten. Lorna asks Brink many questions in succession, and Roger tells her to let Brink get a word in. Micah makes them coffee while the family talks. He was hoping to give them privacy, but they all follow him to the kitchen to continue their discussion.

Roger asks why Brink chose to come to Micah. Brink confesses he thought Micah might be his real dad because they have things in common. Micah expects Roger to retort in a way that is insulting to Micah, but instead Roger describes Micah as a hard-working, self-sufficient man who “expects no handouts” (157). He says Brink is nothing like Micah. Upset, Brink runs out. Lorna scolds Roger for the reaction and chases after Brink. Roger apologizes to Micah for the imposition, then goes after them.

Noticing Brink left his clothes, Micah follows the family outside. He catches Lorna walking back. Roger and Brink stay outside to talk on their own while Lorna and Micah go back inside. Lorna complains about Roger and apologizes that Micah didn’t get to meet him at his best. She says Micah and Roger are not so different. Micah disagrees because Roger is a lawyer with a wife and family. Lorna says Micah will find someone. Micah asks her why women seem turned off by him, saying that they seem interested at first but slowly grow disenchanted with him. Lorna says she doesn’t believe that, but Micah rebuts that it happened with her.

Lorna indignantly replies that it wasn’t she who ended the relationship. Micah brings up that she kissed someone else. Lorna explains that she wasn’t actually kissing the guy but rather he had kissed her, and she was so shocked she didn’t manage to pull away quickly. She goes on to remind Micah that she tried to tell him this, but he didn’t believe her. She says they were going through a rough patch at the time anyway, which is news to Micah.

Lorna reminds Micah of his bicycle he’d wanted as a kid. It was a special bike that Micah begged for and got for his 12th birthday. Not long after, Micah got caught up playing basketball at the park, and when he went to get his bike, it had been stolen. Lorna asks how he could forget to care for something that he’d wanted so badly. She says that now that he had the bike, he’d noticed things wrong with it and it mattered less and less to him. Lorna feels like that bike, explaining that Micah stopped caring about what she said, acted bored with her, and found fault with her. She says Micah was glad for the excuse to be rid of her. She explains how she pleaded with him not to leave her, but his mind was made up.

Micah realizes that he’s forgotten all the flaws their relationship had, including his own flaws. He struggles to “adjust to this altered view of the past” (163).

Roger and Brink return. Brink begrudgingly recites an apology, confesses to the cheating, and vows to do better. Lorna starts to harp on Brink about his potential, but Roger stops her. Lorna and Roger thank Micah for his help and leave with Brink. Micah returns to his coffee. He pours it down the drain and puts away the unused mugs.

Chapter 8 Summary

The narration shifts to present tense and takes on a more outside view of Micah as it describes his following Monday. He wakes up to the radio alarm with depressing world news. He tries to sleep in, but struggles. He gets up and goes for his run. After observing an old man struggle to his car to leave for work, Micah thinks about his own aging and health. He knows he’ll soon be older too. Micah mistakes a box for a child and recognizes that his poor vision always causes him to see people when there aren’t any.

After his shower, he decides to skip his shave because he cannot muster the willpower. He eats his breakfast standing at the counter. He doesn’t bother to vacuum around the table after because he didn’t sit there. It’s mopping day, but he fails to fetch the mop and instead goes to check his email. He deletes most of it but replies to Kegger that he’ll help him pick out a computer on Wednesday.

Lorna texts Micah to tell him that her family had a long discussion in the car on the way home and will be meeting with the dean soon. Micah thinks of several ways to respond, all negatively and alluding to the bitterness he holds after their conversation. He doesn’t like that Lorna indicated that it was his fault they broke up. He doesn’t send any reply. He tells himself it’s over and done with—adding that all of his relationships are. He tells himself he should feel liberated and thinks about his past girlfriends again. When he comes up on Cass, he wonders why she had been dishonest with him about her expectations.

Micah receives a call from a client wondering if it’s safe to send error reports. Micah assures her it is, and she thanks him. His next call is a man who needs help fixing his scanner. Micah agrees to a house visit and heads out. On the way, he listens to a talk radio show, then the news. There is a tanker truck blocking intersections, causing delays. Micah listens to an immigrant on the news saying he’ll just keep trying to enter the United States because that’s his only choice.

Instead of driving to his client, Micah finds himself driving to Cass’s school. He wonders if the fourth graders are at recess. He approaches some students jumping rope, asking if they’re in fourth grade and where their teacher is. Micah stumbles over a jacket and falls on his knees. One of the girls calls for Ms. Slade. Cass approaches and sees Micah, who has gotten back to his feet. Micah tells her he’s “done everything wrong” by trying to be perfect. He complains that his life has come to nothing, and he has no idea where he’s going. She asks what happened to him. Micah tells her he’s “a roomful of broken hearts” (178). Cass puts her arm around him and guides him toward the building. Micah feels optimistic as they walk close together, stumbling over each other’s feet.

Chapters 7-8 Analysis

Chapters 7 and 8 drive home the novel’s main themes and show Micah making steps to change himself. The themes of misconceptions, second chances, and parental concern are presented through the unraveling of Brink’s mystery, the revisiting of Lorna and Micah’s college relationship, and the way Micah pushes forward in life after gaining a new understanding of himself.

Chapter 7 closes the conflict with Brink’s disappearance, finally answering the question of what made him run away in the first place. Lorna and Roger both have a deep concern for Brink that manifests in ways that aren’t always productive for their relationship with their son. When Brink admits he thought Micah was his dad, Roger takes this opportunity to put Brink down by telling Brink that he’s not good enough to compare himself to Micah. Lorna scolds Roger for this, but she is also guilty of approaching Brink with the wrong tone. When Brink confesses to having forged a paper, Lorna starts in on him, asking “how could you” (165) and bringing up Brink’s intelligence and talent. Roger, in turn, keeps Lorna in check. These interactions reveal how parental concern can manifest in negative ways that ultimately do not benefit the child.

The themes of misconceptions and second chances are driven home in these final two chapters as Micah is forced to face the reality of how his relationship with Lorna ended. Micah believes throughout the book that Lorna cheated on him and broke his heart when everything else was perfect. However, Lorna tells Micah that they “were going through a rough patch” and she was “feeling kind of miserable” (161). After learning about how Lorna felt in the relationship, Micah must “adjust to this altered view of the past” (163). Lorna explains her feelings to Micah through a metaphor using his old, stolen bicycle as an example. She explains that in the same way Micah neglected the bike he’d wanted for so long, he neglected her. Lorna goes on to revisit her opinion on Micah’s inability to give second chances, as mentioned in Chapter 5. She reminds Micah that she begged him to not end the relationship, but he used the kiss, which she did not actively participate in or want, as an excuse to leave her forever. Micah’s conversation with Lorna helps him to realize how he’s warped his idea of their past to not let himself find fault with himself.

In Chapter 8, Micah begins to make changes. These changes are not active decisions on his part but rather a result of the loneliness and depression he’s feeling since Cass left him and Lorna set him straight. In his loneliness and aimlessness, Micah struggles to complete his usual morning routine. When he goes to shave, he “stares at his own face and just cannot, cannot be bothered” (169). Of his regular chores, it’s mopping day, but Micah “makes no move to fetch the mop and buckets” (170). While these omissions hint at the depression Micah feels, they also signify the change Micah is going through. He no longer cares about the strict routines he’s created for himself. He has begun to reevaluate where he is going with his life and what he finds important. In the span of Chapter 8, Micah goes from trying to convince himself that “He ought to feel liberated” (171) by his lack of relationship to admitting to Cass that he is a “roomful of broken hearts” (178). This shift is a result of his reevaluation of his own tendencies as well as his past relationships. As foreshadowed by the story of the immigrant who vows to “Try again, try again, and try again after that [...] because what else can a person do” (175), Micah seeks out Cass to both ask for a second chance and allow himself to give her a second chance as well.

Micah’s return to Cass is a culmination of the loneliness he’s grown to feel and the emptiness he’s recognized within his own life through his interactions with Lorna and her family. After reevaluating how he sees his past with Lorna, Micah comes to reevaluate his present and decides that it would be worthwhile to give Cass a second chance and ask her for a second chance in return.