In this chap­ter titled “Nor­ma,” the pro­tag­o­nist reflects on her child­hood dreams, specif­i­cal­ly two con­trast­ing dreams that plagued her since she was around four or five years old—a bright dream filled with light and a dark­er coun­ter­part. The bright dream unfolds in a car where she enjoys the warmth of sun­light, con­trast­ed stark­ly by the unset­tling night­time dark­ness of her oth­er dream, which fea­tures a bright moon and whis­per­ing owls. She recalls a mys­te­ri­ous woman in these dreams who resem­bles her moth­er but remains face­less and enig­mat­ic, lead­ing to feel­ings of con­fu­sion and intense long­ing.

As Nor­ma grows old­er, she acknowl­edges the shift of her child­hood dreams into sources of anx­i­ety. The care­free inno­cence of her youth tran­si­tions into fear and uncer­tain­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing her moth­er’s odd respons­es to her night­mares, which cul­mi­nate in a pat­tern of guilt and sad­ness. Her par­ents offer inad­e­quate expla­na­tions that fur­ther dimin­ish her attempts to artic­u­late her fears: her father’s rea­son­ing often leads to shame, while her moth­er express­es a need to con­trol their home envi­ron­ment.

The chap­ter delves into the emo­tion­al land­scapes shaped by these dreams, high­light­ing how they impact Nor­ma’s self-per­cep­tion and famil­ial rela­tion­ships. With child­hood inno­cence erod­ed by the bur­dens of adults’ hid­den fears and the frac­ture of fam­i­ly dynamics—specifically the strain caused by her moth­er’s past traumas—Norma is left ques­tion­ing her real­i­ty. Her moth­er often tries to rede­fine her fears, attribut­ing them to child­ish imag­i­na­tion or even sug­gest­ing con­sul­ta­tions with a min­is­ter, dis­miss­ing the grav­i­ty of the dreams.

Even­tu­al­ly, the impact of grief from the loss of sib­lings becomes appar­ent in Nor­ma’s con­scious­ness. The dreams serve as a poignant reminder of famil­ial love laced with anx­i­ety and guilt sur­round­ing her exis­tence as the lone sur­vivor. Through a ther­a­py intro­duc­tion with a friend of her Aunt June named Alice, Nor­ma is encour­aged to express her feel­ings through writ­ing, mark­ing a cru­cial shift in her cop­ing mech­a­nisms.

As the nar­ra­tive pro­gress­es, the chap­ter encap­su­lates the com­plex inter­play of mem­o­ry, trau­ma, and per­cep­tion, all cen­tral to Nor­ma’s unfold­ing iden­ti­ty cri­sis against the back­drop of her mother’s men­tal decline. This rela­tion­ship is fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by a unique mix of guilt, respon­si­bil­i­ty, and the desire to be under­stood amidst the tan­gled real­i­ties of her fam­i­ly life. Ulti­mate­ly, the dreams and their inter­pre­ta­tions become a mir­ror of her emo­tion­al state and famil­ial dynam­ics, sug­gest­ing deep­er issues con­cern­ing loss and the strug­gle for emo­tion­al val­i­da­tion.