In the chap­ter from “If These Wings Could Fly,” the nar­ra­tor reflects on her sis­ter Camp­bell Grace Barnes, a seri­ous thinker who often keeps her thoughts to her­self. Camp­bell, who pri­or­i­tizes rid­ing her bicy­cle over oth­er aspects of life, finds joy in the free­dom it brings, diverg­ing from the pres­sures of a busy house­hold. How­ev­er, this care­free exis­tence leads to trou­ble when Camp­bell inad­ver­tent­ly destroys Mrs. Stieg’s flower gar­den while bik­ing with friends.

Mrs. Stieg, an elder­ly wid­ow and neigh­bor, con­fronts the nar­ra­tor about Camp­bel­l’s mis­chief. Her rep­ri­mand­ing tone sig­ni­fies her strong dis­ap­proval, sub­tly hint­ing that Camp­bell should asso­ciate with girls instead of spend­ing time with boys. Despite Campbell’s expla­na­tion that the inci­dent was accidental—a result of rac­ing down a hill—the nar­ra­tor sens­es that Mrs. Stieg’s asser­tion stems from her old-fash­ioned views regard­ing gen­der roles and friend­ships.

The fol­low­ing morn­ing, the sis­ters arrive at Mrs. Stieg’s home to apol­o­gize and help fix the dam­age done to the gar­den. They work qui­et­ly to restore the ros­es, but the process leads to injuries from thorns, sym­bol­iz­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties faced not only in their actions but in nav­i­gat­ing adult per­cep­tions and expec­ta­tions.

As they fin­ish, Mrs. Stieg impos­es her tra­di­tion­al beliefs onto the girls, cri­tiquing mod­ern youth­ful behav­iors and push­ing the idea that women should pri­mar­i­ly sup­port their hus­bands. For Camp­bell, this provoca­tive­ly out­dat­ed per­spec­tive trig­gers her defi­ance, and she responds with anger, ulti­mate­ly leav­ing Mrs. Stieg in shock.

The chap­ter con­cludes with the nar­ra­tor grap­pling with the soci­etal pres­sures placed on women, depict­ed through the metaphor of the wilt­ing ros­es in their home. Feel­ing over­whelmed, she lat­er dis­pos­es of the flow­ers, sym­bol­i­cal­ly reject­ing the harm­ful ideals they rep­re­sent, choos­ing instead to con­front the com­plex­i­ties of wom­an­hood with hon­esty and resilience. Over­all, the themes of teenage rebel­lion against soci­etal expec­ta­tions, sib­ling loy­al­ty, and the strug­gle for iden­ti­ty are intri­cate­ly woven through­out the nar­ra­tive.