Chap­ter 22 opens with Patri­cia feel­ing emo­tion­al­ly drained, choos­ing to retreat into her own space and away from the ongo­ing ten­sion at home. She heads to bed ear­ly, sens­ing that her rela­tion­ship with Carter is fray­ing at the edges, but instead of con­fronting her feel­ings, she lets him han­dle the kids while he tries to keep their home run­ning. After din­ner, Carter takes the ini­tia­tive to have a seri­ous talk with their chil­dren, Blue and Korey, while Patri­cia takes a step back, not ready to engage in their domes­tic tur­moil. As the night pro­gress­es, Carter’s choice to sleep on the sofa fur­ther deep­ens the emo­tion­al dis­tance between them. The next morn­ing, Patri­cia is con­front­ed with the grim real­i­ty of a news arti­cle about a young girl, Des­tiny Tay­lor, who had trag­i­cal­ly tak­en her own life, a child who had been in their orbit. This news leaves Patri­cia feel­ing emp­ty and numb, but she is soon drawn into a con­ver­sa­tion with Carter that forces her to reex­am­ine their life togeth­er.

The con­ver­sa­tion quick­ly becomes charged when Patri­cia express­es her hor­ror at the idea of a young child like Des­tiny end­ing her life, a tragedy she feels they could have pre­vent­ed in some way. She con­trasts this with Carter’s increas­ing­ly clin­i­cal per­spec­tive on their own children’s strug­gles, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on Blue and his grow­ing fas­ci­na­tion with dis­turb­ing top­ics like Holo­caust footage. Patri­cia is furi­ous that Carter seems to be dis­miss­ing the grav­i­ty of Destiny’s death in favor of cri­tiquing their chil­dren’s behav­ior. When Carter insists that his offer of medication—Prozac—could “fix” her, Patri­cia feels a wave of frus­tra­tion and pow­er­less­ness. Carter’s sug­ges­tion feels like anoth­er attempt to con­trol her, mask­ing his own inabil­i­ty to con­front the emo­tion­al dis­ar­ray in their fam­i­ly. She finds her­self ques­tion­ing the depth of their con­nec­tion, real­iz­ing that they are drift­ing apart despite their shared his­to­ry.

This sense of emo­tion­al alien­ation inten­si­fies as Patri­cia tries to reach out to her friends for sup­port. How­ev­er, her calls to Kit­ty, Maryellen, and oth­ers are met with dis­in­ter­est or avoid­ance. The tragedy of Des­tiny Tay­lor seems to be fad­ing from everyone’s thoughts, replaced by a focus on their own lives and busi­ness ven­tures. This lack of empa­thy from those around her only rein­forces Patri­ci­a’s grow­ing sense of iso­la­tion. At the same time, her attempts to warn oth­ers about the dark under­cur­rents in their com­mu­ni­ty are dis­missed. Slick, who Patri­cia has always viewed as a true friend, seems to be more focused on main­tain­ing her own sta­bil­i­ty and fam­i­ly life than on acknowl­edg­ing the hor­rors unfold­ing around them. Patri­ci­a’s frus­tra­tion grows as she real­izes that the peo­ple she once trust­ed now view her as an out­sider, some­one to be avoid­ed rather than sup­port­ed.

Lat­er, Patricia’s con­ver­sa­tion with Grace fur­ther unrav­els her sense of con­nec­tion to those she once called friends. Grace, who Patri­cia believed would under­stand the grav­i­ty of their sit­u­a­tion, turns defen­sive, brush­ing off Patricia’s con­cerns as over­dra­mat­ic. Grace’s refusal to acknowl­edge the sig­nif­i­cance of Des­tiny’s death and her focus on main­tain­ing a facade of nor­mal­cy only deep­ens Patricia’s sense of betray­al. The con­fronta­tion leaves Patri­cia feel­ing as though she is the only one will­ing to con­front the painful truths about the world around them. As the con­ver­sa­tion dete­ri­o­rates, Patri­cia is forced to con­front the uncom­fort­able real­i­ty that she might be stand­ing alone in her fight against the apa­thy that has tak­en over her life and the lives of those she loves.

Patricia’s emo­tion­al jour­ney inten­si­fies as she returns home, where she faces yet anoth­er painful inter­ac­tion with her daugh­ter Korey. The ten­sion in the house is pal­pa­ble, and Patri­cia, dri­ven by a mix of frus­tra­tion and help­less­ness, lash­es out, attempt­ing to assert con­trol over a sit­u­a­tion that feels increas­ing­ly out of her hands. She real­izes that she is stuck in a cycle of reac­tion and sup­pres­sion, unable to break free from the con­straints placed on her by Carter and the weight of her own unre­solved feel­ings. Her desire to break free from this tox­ic pat­tern is clear, but as the Prozac sits on the table, Patri­cia is forced to con­front the grim pos­si­bil­i­ty that her only way for­ward may be through the very pill Carter has offered her—a life­line to sta­bil­i­ty, but one that also rep­re­sents anoth­er form of con­trol.

The chap­ter con­cludes with Patri­cia stand­ing at a cross­roads. She is caught between the desire to main­tain her family’s façade of nor­mal­cy and the need to acknowl­edge the deep emo­tion­al scars that have been left unad­dressed for too long. Her inter­nal con­flict is pal­pa­ble as she grap­ples with the pres­sure to con­form to Carter’s vision of what her life should be ver­sus the real­i­ty of the trau­ma that con­tin­ues to haunt her. It is clear that Patricia’s jour­ney is one of self-dis­cov­ery, where she must decide whether to con­tin­ue down the path laid out for her or to break free and forge a new way forward—one that embraces hon­esty and heal­ing, no mat­ter the cost.