Goodbye Days

Chapter 31 consists of a brief internal monologue. It’s two months after the accident. Carver wonders whether his brain is creating false memories about his friends. He has a persistent memory of hanging out with them at a playground, but he can’t recall when this happened. “If my brain wants to manufacture new memories of them, I’ll accept it and I won’t ask too many questions” (257), he concludes.

Jesmyn and Carver go to the Bauers’ house for Eli’s goodbye day. Carver has a flashback beforehand, thinking of how he met Eli. Mr. and Mrs. Bauer (Pierce and Melissa) participate in the goodbye day. Adair does not. They first eat breakfast from a bakery where the Bauer family would go every Saturday. Then they drive to a waterfall where they plan to scatter bits of sand from an art project Eli made for his parents when he was little.

On the drive, Mr. Bauer muses about how the family decided, on a similar car ride, that Eli should attend Nashville Arts Academy (NAA). He references the butterfly effect, similar to the ripple effect, saying if Eli had never attended NAA, he would still be alive: “I can’t help but contemplate the singular moments—the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings—leading to unforeseen consequences” (268).