This chapter focuses on Katharine and Janie, the girls of the family. The baby girls.
Sweets: Did you two ever bond over your brothers?
Katharine: Smiling – Definitely.
Janie: Yes.
Sweets: How, exactly?
Katharine: Well, we always tried to bring light into our lives, during the holidays when trying to make things festive and joyous, and that would usually be just us girls, including our mother.
Sweets: How do you feel about your mother?
Janie: Sad.
Katharine: What? No, no. We didn't feel sad, she was a very… She didn't know any better, her own father abused her, and she grew up in a catholic school, with corporate punishment and all –
Janie: To Katharine - When I think about my mother, about our mother, I feel sad. To Sweets – She's recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, she's the second one in our family. Her sister, Ruth, has also been diagnosed, which is sad, it's like she never has to go through anything alone. She was abused by her own father with the rest of her sisters, by the nuns like every other student, and by her husband as long as her children.
Katharine: Jane – Ugh, Janie, sweetie, taking Janie's hands and sighing, she doesn't look at her life as sad, when she thinks of her life, she thinks of us.
Janie: This is sad, that her life revolves around –
Katharine: You're not a teenager anymore, Janie! You don't understand what it's like to be a mother. You never will.
Janie: No, I can, I just don't want to – you're the one who is only ever going to have step children.
Sweets: Do you ever feel that your father's abuse has damaged you sexually over the years?
Katharine: Um, I guess so. Yeah.
