44 pages • 1 hour read
The Leftovers
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BetaPart 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 5: “Miracle Child”
Chapter 16 Summary: “Any Minute Now”
Tom remains at the Falks’ home. Christine’s due date is in one week; she is preparing for a natural childbirth, as Gilchrest expects of her. Despite not having had an ultrasound performed, both Christine and the Falks are certain that the baby is a boy who will fulfill Holy Wayne’s prophecy of a messiah. Tom is worried that Christine will give birth to a baby girl, and the baby will be seen as a disappointment. Christine invites Tom to return to Gilchrest’s home with her following the birth and his release from prison, but Tom declines, planning to return to Mapleton.
Two months after Valentine’s Day, Kevin sits on the porch with his morning coffee. No progress was made in the search for Julian’s killer, and the mood in Mapleton is returning to normal, as “eventually people got tired of brooding about it” (297). Aimee joins him. The two chat comfortably as close friends. Later that afternoon, Jill returns home from school after Aimee leaves for work. The two girls are “timing their arrivals and departures so that they never overlapped in the house unless one of them [is] sleeping” (307). Jill and Kevin talk about that day’s news of Holy Wayne Gilchrest, who pleaded guilty on all charges of sexual misconduct and will serve time in jail. In a statement to the public, Gilchrest admits that he let fame and attention go to his head and that his claims of being a savior are false.
Laurie and Meg are summoned to Patti’s office to talk about the new housemates who will be joining them at Outpost 17. Laurie asks how Gus is, as no one has seen him since Julian’s murder. Patti tells them that Gus is protected; Gus fulfilled the sacrifice of killing his lover at the request of the Guilty Remnant, which plans to have a series of martyrs in Mapleton.
Chapter 17 Summary: “So Much to Let Go Of”
Nora decides to change her identity, move out of Mapleton, and begin a new life somewhere else. To begin this process, she decides to dye her naturally dark hair blonde, as she believes “a clean break with the past, a wholesale change of appearance" (310) requires something drastic. After dyeing her hair, Nora writes goodbye letters to her sister, Kevin, and her friends in Mapleton. She resents Kevin for bringing up his phone call from his son during their Valentine’s dinner; his obliviousness to her inability to move on was the final straw in Nora’s attempts to appear normal in Mapleton. In her letter to Kevin, Nora describes the moment the rapture took her family. They were having an ordinary family dinner, the children were upset and tense, and Doug was unhelpful. Nora, annoyed, went into the kitchen to get paper towels to clean up a spill. When she returned, her family was gone. She admits that “all parents get stressed out and angry and wish for a little peace and quiet. It’s not the same as wishing for the people you love to be gone forever. But what if it is, Kevin? Then what?” (321).
Jill returned to focusing on her schoolwork, but lately she is distracted by instant messaging her fourth-grade teacher, Holly Maffey. The two reconnected during the investigation of Julian’s murder when Jill was brought into the Guilty Remnant’s buildings and asked to identify Gus. Holly and Jill recognized each other; since then, although Jill “understood that she was being recruited” (313), she continues to IM Holly out of desperation to fill Laurie’s vacancy in her life. Holly encourages Jill to let go of her life and move on. She invites her to come as a guest to one of the Guilty Remnant’s houses and spend the night. Jill agrees to come the following week.
Laurie and Meg move into the master bedroom in Outpost 17. Their intimacy is now “a bond of complete trust that went beyond anything Laurie had shared with her husband” (316). Both realize that the Guilty Remnant’s leadership will ask one of them to sacrifice the other; they avoid talking about it.
Chapter 18 Summary: “I’m Glad You’re Here”
Christine gives birth to a baby girl. The baby’s gender, combined with Gilchrest’s guilty plea, throws the Falks and Christine into a deep depression. The Falks ask them to leave immediately; Tom steals their car and drives them toward Mapleton en route to Christine’s family’s home in Ohio. Tom takes on most of the responsibility for the baby, as Christine is “catatonic.” She refuses to give the baby a name. At a rest area, Tom feeds the baby and talks with some Barefoot People on their way to a solstice party in Mount Pocono. He forces Christine to hold the baby while he goes to the bathroom. She leaves the baby in the car and goes off with the Barefoot People. Tom drives to Mapleton with the baby and, although he intends to see his father, he decides to leave the baby on the Garveys’ doorstep with an anonymous note. He drives toward Mount Pocono to find Christine.
That morning, Kevin and Aimee embraced each other, their friendship having quickly turned to sexual interest on both sides. Kevin plays softball that evening, intending to discuss the matter with her later. On his way home, he receives a text from Jill that Aimee moved out and “adds her name to the list of people he cared about who’d moved on” (354). When he arrives at home, he finds Nora, who came to deliver her goodbye letter, waiting for him with Christine’s baby in her arms.
Jill packs for her overnight trip to the Guilty Remnant’s house. Aimee packed as well and announces that she is moving in with a friend from work. The former friends acknowledge how necessary their friendship was at the time, but both are ready to move on. While walking to meet Holly, the Frost twins pull up alongside Jill and ask her to hang out.
Laurie and Meg welcome their new housemates by ordering pizza for dinner. The newcomers are “blissfully unaware of the beautiful tradition they’d chosen to uphold” (332) as residents of Outpost 17. When ordered to, Meg and Laurie go to a secluded area in Mapleton. Laurie is instructed to shoot Meg without hesitation: “The martyr’s exit should be swift and painless” (343). Laurie is unable to do it, but Meg takes the gun and shoots herself. Laurie continues with her orders and meets the getaway car where it waits for her, not knowing where she will end up.
Part 5 Analysis
In the final chapters of The Leftovers, the need to move on from the tragedy of the Rapture comes to a head. Kevin’s list of people who phased out of his life signals the method he uses to move on: acknowledging loss but prioritizing a sustained daily routine and a purposeful life. He remains relatively unattached to the people in his life so that he does not suffer severe disappointment when important figures such as Laurie and Aimee decide to leave him. He believes it is human nature to move on as if a tragic event did not disrupt one’s daily life (297), whereas both women he is romantically linked with are compelled toward remembrance and change as ways of coping with loss.
Nora’s guilt is exposed in her letter to Kevin. Her inability to move on by first trying out new roles and then trying to fit into her old ones is rooted in her sense of guilt that she somehow caused her family’s disappearance by longing for a respite from the tensions and chaos of family life. Considering that the rapture’s cause is a mystery that will most likely never be solved for these characters, Nora’s question asks how people in a state of grief—the rapture’s “leftovers”—should view their relationship to the departed. Nora cannot move on from her family’s loss because she feels responsible for the disappearance of her husband and her children. With the rapture’s cause remaining a mystery, she can never be certain whether it was her fault or not; thus, she remains trapped in a cycle of guilt and self-doubt.
Christine’s baby’s female gender marks the end of the Holy Wayne movement, more so than his confession and conviction. The gendered stereotype of a male savior, as well as Wayne Gilchrest’s desire for another son following his wife’s hysterectomy, forces Christine’s body into a transactional role. She is valued only for her usefulness to the cause. Tom is the only character who sees past this and accepts the baby girl after she is born. Christine’s baby is not the global spiritual savior predicted by Holy Wayne, but she is a savior for Nora. Though Nora went to great lengths to erase her presence in Mapleton and begin fresh with a new identity, she immediately assumes the role of mother and protector to Christine’s baby. Being an adoptive mother is a new role for her, yet it is familiar enough to allow her to return to mothering as a vehicle for her healing.
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