In Chap­ter Twen­ty-Five of *If These Wings Could Fly*, the nar­ra­tor reflects on the com­plex­i­ties of fam­i­ly dynam­ics, par­tic­u­lar­ly the emo­tion­al tur­bu­lence stem­ming from a father’s unpre­dictable anger. The chap­ter opens with a metaphor com­par­ing the house to a healed bone—something once bro­ken that has now mend­ed, yet still car­ries the scars of its past.

Recall­ing a spe­cif­ic snow day from her child­hood, the nar­ra­tor describes a scene when she was eight years old. Her moth­er, preg­nant with Juniper and work­ing as a wait­ress, leaves for work, while her father, exhaust­ed from labor, strug­gles with the over­flow of trash that had been ignored. Upon see­ing the mess, he erupts in anger, vio­lent­ly throw­ing the trash and break­ing a cab­i­net door in the process. This over­whelm­ing anger rever­ber­ates with­in the nar­ra­tor, result­ing in her and her broth­er Camp­bell flee­ing to hide in a clos­et.

When their moth­er even­tu­al­ly finds them, they return to a scene that remains chaot­ic; their father is asleep on the couch, and the cab­i­net door, con­trary to the nar­ra­tor’s mem­o­ry of its destruc­tion, appears unbro­ken. The moment exem­pli­fies a child’s con­fu­sion and the blend of real­i­ty with the sur­re­al, lead­ing her to doubt her per­cep­tion. Campbell’s whis­per that it was “mag­ic” indi­cates a shared recog­ni­tion of the unusu­al.

As time pass­es, these vio­lent out­bursts become more fre­quent, and the nar­ra­tor gains insight into the cycli­cal nature of her father’s behav­ior. Despite repeat­ed promis­es that he will change, the pat­tern of anger per­sists. She under­stands now that love alone does not pre­vent these episodes; instead, it com­pli­cates the sit­u­a­tion, cre­at­ing a painful bond that makes leav­ing feel impos­si­ble.

In ret­ro­spect, the nar­ra­tor recalls how the phys­i­cal dam­age to their home often gets repaired mag­i­cal­ly, reflect­ing the denial they’ve learned to adopt in response to their father’s volatil­i­ty. This chap­ter encap­su­lates the strug­gle of chil­dren try­ing to make sense of an errat­ic home life, the changes they wit­ness, and the emo­tion­al resilience they cul­ti­vate amidst chaos.

In Chap­ter Twen­ty-Five of “The Choco­late War,” Jer­ry Renault finds him­self sum­moned before The Vig­ils, an intim­i­dat­ing group at Trin­i­ty High School. The meet­ing kicks off with a pecu­liar, ran­som note-style sum­mons that sets a child­ish yet threat­en­ing tone, typ­i­cal of Archie Costel­lo’s manip­u­la­tion. As Jer­ry enters a stor­age room filled with the echoes of boys play­ing sports in the near­by gym, the atmos­phere thick­ens with ten­sion as Archie, seat­ed at a table adorned with the school’s col­ors, presents a box of choco­lates.

Archie’s inter­ac­tion with Jer­ry is laced with mock­ery and psy­cho­log­i­cal games. After invit­ing Jer­ry to par­take in a choco­late, Archie abrupt­ly piv­ots the dis­cus­sion to Jer­ry’s fail­ure to sell the choco­lates for a school fundrais­er. Jer­ry’s protests and expla­na­tions of his reluc­tance to par­tic­i­pate in the choco­late sale lead to a con­fronta­tion­al atmos­phere, filled with laugh­ter and teas­ing from the oth­er mem­bers of The Vig­ils. They call out num­bers, brag­ging about their sales, cre­at­ing a stark con­trast to Jer­ry’s admis­sion of zero sales.

Archie refus­es to acknowl­edge Jer­ry’s per­son­al rea­sons for non­com­pli­ance, assert­ing that The Vig­ils oper­ate with­out secrets, thrust­ing Jer­ry into an uncom­fort­able spot­light. As Jer­ry con­tem­plates the recent pos­i­tive devel­op­ments in his life—football, school, and a girl named Ellen Barrett—he feels a pro­found sense of dread and hope­less­ness dur­ing the meet­ing.

In a cli­mac­tic turn, Archie deliv­ers an ulti­ma­tum: Jer­ry must accept the choco­lates and sell them. Obie, anoth­er Vig­il mem­ber, secret­ly rev­els in watch­ing Jer­ry stand up to Archie, real­iz­ing that Jer­ry is unlike­ly to com­ply. The chap­ter con­cludes as Archie dis­miss­es the meet­ing, leav­ing Jer­ry vul­ner­a­ble while hint­ing at unre­solved ten­sions between indi­vid­ual desires and the group’s demands, framed with­in the over­lap­ping themes of peer pres­sure and per­son­al integri­ty. Jerry’s qui­et defi­ance fore­shad­ows impend­ing con­flict, estab­lish­ing a piv­otal moment in the nar­ra­tive where he must decide between acqui­es­cence and resis­tance.