**Chap­ter Forty-Five Sum­ma­ry**

The chap­ter opens with a series of mem­o­ries that the nar­ra­tor has from their child­hood, reflect­ing on moments of phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al pain. These include the time when they were four, and they stepped on a piece of scrap met­al, as well as the fever that gripped them at age sev­en, and the over­whelm­ing emo­tions tied to their first peri­od at eleven. Each mem­o­ry is a rem­i­nis­cence of pain, but now the source of pain is their moth­er.

The scene shifts to the present, where the moth­er is depict­ed as crouched and dis­tressed, embody­ing con­fu­sion and suf­fer­ing. The narrator’s instinct is to reach out, to offer com­fort, pos­ing the ques­tion, “Where does it hurt?” Her response, “Every­where,” res­onates deeply as she remains hunched and seem­ing­ly lost in her anguish. The vivid imagery of crows caw­ing — almost like a rit­u­al­is­tic chant — adds a lay­er of inten­si­ty to the scene, empha­siz­ing the heav­i­ness of the moment.

The nar­ra­tor’s desire to con­sole and reas­sure their moth­er reveals a pro­found bond and under­stand­ing; they attempt to remind her that she is safe now, and that “he” is gone. This “he” sym­bol­izes the pres­ence of an abuser who sub­ject­ed her to ver­bal and phys­i­cal tor­ments. The mom’s tears, which fall with­out reach­ing her cheeks, sig­ni­fy a deep-seat­ed sor­row that is more than just phys­i­cal pain.

The rev­e­la­tion that her suf­fer­ing stems not sole­ly from the mem­o­ries of abuse, but also from the absence of the abuser casts a somber light on the com­plex­i­ties of love and loss. The mother’s whis­pers of long­ing high­light a painful con­tra­dic­tion: even after the dan­ger is removed, the emo­tion­al tur­moil per­sists, for she secret­ly desires the return of the very per­son who caused her pain.

The chap­ter clos­es with the poignant self-reflec­tion of the nar­ra­tor, who con­tem­plates their own feel­ings of hurt and real­izes that they, too, hurt “every­where.” This echoes the broad­er themes of pain, loss, and the pro­found effects of trau­ma, leav­ing a haunt­ing impres­sion of inter­con­nect­ed suf­fer­ing between moth­er and child.