In Chap­ter Fifty-One of “If These Wings Could Fly,” the pro­tag­o­nist, Leighton, returns home to find her fam­i­ly gath­ered in the liv­ing room. Her father, clear­ly bur­dened by guilt and stress, express­es regret for his recent out­burst, attribut­ing it to the pres­sure of his fail­ing busi­ness and a desire to shield his daugh­ters from his prob­lems. His words are filled with remorse as he apol­o­gizes, but the under­ly­ing ten­sion remains pal­pa­ble.

Leighton’s moth­er attempts to sup­port him by sug­gest­ing they keep the house in order to relieve his stress, there­by indi­cat­ing that they believe their actions might have trig­gered his anger. This notion frus­trates Leighton and her sis­ter, Camp­bell, as they silent­ly acknowl­edge the inad­e­qua­cy of such a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. They real­ize this focus on the house and their behav­ior over­looks the real issue at hand.

As the con­ver­sa­tion con­tin­ues, their father pro­pos­es adding more enjoy­able activ­i­ties to their fam­i­ly dynam­ic, hop­ing to cre­ate pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences despite finan­cial con­straints. When he pleads with Leighton to be a part of this new­found plan, she reluc­tant­ly agrees but remains con­flict­ed about the sin­cer­i­ty behind their father’s apolo­getic demeanor.

Lat­er, as Leighton seeks refuge on the front stoop with her moth­er, they dis­cuss the mul­ti­tude of birds in their tree—a moment that jux­ta­pos­es the chaos in their home life with the tran­quil­i­ty in nature. Her moth­er insists that her father isn’t a mon­ster, but mere­ly a flawed per­son grap­pling with his demons. Leighton, how­ev­er, strug­gles to accept this idea; she feels their father’s humil­i­a­tion is a small com­fort in light of his destruc­tive behav­ior.

The dis­cus­sion reveals ten­sions about their father’s recent actions, includ­ing stay­ing with Offi­cer DiMar­co, which Leighton views with dis­dain. As she con­tem­plates the issues with­in their fam­i­ly unit, she rec­og­nizes that even though they are bound by love, their rela­tion­ships are frag­ile and could eas­i­ly col­lapse under the weight of unre­solved con­flicts. The chap­ter clos­es with Leighton con­tem­plat­ing the com­plex­i­ty of their famil­ial bonds while hold­ing her moth­er’s hand, sig­ni­fy­ing a moment of sol­i­dar­i­ty amidst the tur­moil.