Chap­ter 5: Joe begins with a poignant moment where Joe’s moth­er express­es her res­ig­na­tion about the search for his miss­ing sis­ter, Ruthie. Despite her sor­row, she insists that it’s time to let go, hold­ing on to the belief that Ruthie might still be out there, liv­ing her own life. Joe, now the youngest child after Ruthie’s dis­ap­pear­ance, feels the heavy bur­den of respon­si­bil­i­ty to sup­port his moth­er dur­ing her grief. His pres­ence alone, sim­ply being there and offer­ing her atten­tion, becomes his way of help­ing, though it can­not erase the under­ly­ing sor­row. This dynam­ic sets the tone for Joe’s emo­tion­al jour­ney, marked by his strug­gle to fill the void left by Ruthie’s absence and pro­vide com­fort to a moth­er unable to ful­ly process her pain.

The family’s once-bustling life has now become qui­eter, with few­er berry pick­ers and a dimin­ish­ing sense of com­mu­ni­ty at their camp. Joe’s mind wan­ders back to the sum­mer when he turned fif­teen, a time filled with joy­ful mem­o­ries but also over­shad­owed by Ruthie’s dis­ap­pear­ance. He reflects on the antic­i­pa­tion of a local car­ni­val, a brief escape from the sad­ness that hung over their dai­ly lives, and a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to social­ize with oth­ers, includ­ing a girl named Susan. The car­ni­val, sym­bol­iz­ing both youth­ful excite­ment and an escape from grief, rep­re­sents a fleet­ing moment of nor­mal­cy. Joe’s mem­o­ries reveal how sig­nif­i­cant the small­est moments of joy were in an oth­er­wise somber exis­tence, show­ing how these moments shaped his emo­tion­al land­scape dur­ing such a tur­bu­lent time in his life.

As Joe picks berries, his excite­ment grows when the trucks car­ry­ing car­ni­val equip­ment rum­ble past, sig­nal­ing the upcom­ing fes­tiv­i­ties. How­ev­er, his hap­pi­ness is short-lived as he wit­ness­es a vio­lent alter­ca­tion between his broth­er, Char­lie, and a local bul­ly named Archie John­son. Despite Joe’s attempts to inter­vene, the con­flict esca­lates quick­ly, with Archie attack­ing Char­lie after a ver­bal alter­ca­tion. Char­lie, in turn, defends Frankie, a drunk­en fig­ure ini­tial­ly tar­get­ed by Archie’s rage. The scene becomes chaot­ic, and Joe’s attempts to de-esca­late the sit­u­a­tion fail as vio­lence erupts, leav­ing him help­less and watch­ing the tragedy unfold. His inno­cence is shat­tered as he is thrust into the harsh real­i­ties of vio­lence, which would soon alter his life irrev­o­ca­bly.

In the after­math of the vio­lent alter­ca­tion, Joe runs to find his sib­lings, try­ing to get help as the joy of the car­ni­val con­trasts sharply with the bru­tal­i­ty unfold­ing behind the tents. Char­lie, severe­ly injured in the attack, needs med­ical atten­tion, but by the time Joe and Ben arrive, it is too late. This moment is a trag­ic real­iza­tion for Joe, as the frag­ile nature of their fam­i­ly bond becomes glar­ing­ly appar­ent in the face of vio­lence and loss. The bru­tal­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion and the fail­ure to pro­tect Char­lie haunt Joe, ampli­fy­ing his feel­ings of guilt and help­less­ness. This event is a piv­otal moment in the chap­ter, show­cas­ing how quick­ly things can spi­ral out of con­trol and how deeply vio­lence can affect famil­ial rela­tion­ships, leav­ing scars that may nev­er ful­ly heal.

Joe is con­sumed by immense guilt and anger after Char­lie suc­cumbs to the injuries inflict­ed dur­ing the fight. The weight of respon­si­bil­i­ty and regret press­es heav­i­ly on him as he strug­gles to rec­on­cile his fail­ure to pre­vent the vio­lence that led to his brother’s death. The chap­ter con­cludes with the family’s painful depar­ture from Maine, bur­dened by grief and unre­solved ten­sions from the night’s events. As they leave, the emo­tion­al scars of that evening are left unad­dressed, lin­ger­ing in the silence between them. Joe’s grief, com­pound­ed by his sense of regret, is height­ened by his inabil­i­ty to change the out­come, leav­ing him with a sense of help­less­ness that will con­tin­ue to define his emo­tion­al jour­ney. The themes of loss, vio­lence, and the deep emo­tion­al wounds that fol­low are explored pro­found­ly in this chap­ter, show­ing the last­ing impact of trau­ma on indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies.