Bone Gap

Finn watches a documentary about a lost tribe in the hospital and goes in and out of sleep. He recalls the day Roza disappeared, how they were at a festival, and Sean’s pager went off to address someone with chest pain. Roza went to look at the sculptures, and Finn went to get cookies and cider. When Finn returned, he noticed Roza with some man. Finn felt uncomfortable about the situation, but Roza insisted she wanted to go with the man. She got in the car and pressed her hands to the glass crying for help. Finn chased after them, but the man stepped on his chest and knocked the wind out of him. The sheriff, Jonas, asked him for details about the man, but Finn couldn’t recall any.

Someone comes into Finn’s hospital room. He thinks it’s a doctor or nurse, but it’s really Roza’s kidnapper, though he doesn’t realize it. Somehow, he’s in a room with a stone wall, and the man he’s talking to has a shaggy beard. Finn thinks it’s his medication or that he must be dreaming. The man asks him why Roza loved Sean, and Finn tells him it’s because he listened. The man says this was instructive. As Finn tries to focus his eyes, the man is gone.

Roza pets Rus and sees a familiar scene: It looks like she’s in Poland. She thinks she’s with her babcia, but it turns out to be another woman in the kitchen. She wonders if she killed her kidnapper or if she died. She remembers running through the fields and finding Miguel’s family, hitching a ride with them, and eating their food while Miguel sleepwalked. She was told she’d find a slanted barn, and sure enough, she did—Sean and Finn’s. She didn’t plan to stay long, but Sean and Finn invited her to stay in their home, and she enjoyed her time with them. Sean was always concerned about how she was feeling. She got to work in their garden, which needed a lot of love. Sean took an interest in her life and asked her questions about herself.

She thinks about Sean while lying with Rus in the grass and wonders what he’s doing. The kidnapper appears, and she cries. He gives her a lamb and asks if she’d like to hold it. Roza accepts and holds the lamb.

Finn has a restless night of sleep after getting home from the hospital. He checks on the horse, Night, and the goat, Chew. He checks on the kittens and decides to prepare a gift for Petey since she was mad at him. Finn brings Petey his mother’s box with a love note in it. It takes him several drafts to write the note. He’s excited to see her. At the appropriate time, he goes to her house, even though his leg still hurts from the accident. Finn and Petey talk, and then he performs oral sex on her. He thinks she enjoys it, but when it’s over, Petey cries. She shows him a bunch of photos. Finn can’t recognize the people in them, not even himself. Petey shares her discovery about him being face blind; she tells him he only loves her because she’s ugly like a “big bee.”

Finn is upset. It’s a lot to take in, and he loves her because he sees her for who she is. Petey gives him his mother’s box back. Finn goes home and curls up with the kittens, filled with a profound sense of loss.

Roza falls into a routine, and her kidnapper tries to give her what she wants. She asks for a garden. Misunderstanding, he gives her a perfect garden. She just wants a patch of dirt to grow her own things in, so he redoes it, and she finds herself enjoying that. Roza thinks of Sean when he cut his hand and how they started to fall in love. The kidnapper had threatened to hurt Finn and Sean if she said anything or tried to run at the festival. She still hopes Sean will come.

Her kidnapper brings the lamb again, and she holds it. She asks her kidnapper where they are; it looks so much like her home, but it’s not. He tells her they are in a place called The Fields, which he can shape to look any way she likes. She asks if anyone has ever left, and he becomes impatient. She wants to know why he took her, and he says she’s the “most beautiful” (262). She doesn’t like that, and he’s tired of waiting for her to come around. He’ll force her to accept him, one way or another. Roza threatens to kill herself, and he says it wouldn’t make any difference to him.