48 pages • 1 hour read
Bill Cleaver, Vera CleaverWhere the Lilies Bloom
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1969A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
While Mary Call is walking down the plowed country road to town, Mr. Connell stops and offers her a lift to the hospital to visit Kiser. First, he takes her to a cafe for breakfast. Afterward, she notes three churches in one block, but Mr. Connell assures her people are “just running scared like everybody else” (153).
This is the first time Mary Call has ever been inside a hospital. She is surprised to see it is not very clean, efficient, or bright. Kiser actually looks somewhat pleased to see her. He has had a rough time, not being able to eat and thinking no one cares about him since he hasn’t heard from his sister. He asks about Devola, Roy Luther, and the animals. Without fanfare, Mary Call asks Kiser to marry her. He cannot believe his ears, his body jerking and shifting. He agrees, though he rattles off all the ways he will take care of Devola and the family. Mary Call stops him, reiterating that she is asking him to marry her, because she promised her father that Devola would never marry Kiser. Kiser reveals he is actually 30. Kiser ponders Mary Call’s assertion that she loves him, but he doesn’t believe it, stating that she doesn’t need him more than she needs a “clod of dirt” (160). His refusal to marry her causes her to blurt out all the negative things she thinks about him. She starts crying but claims that she isn’t. Kiser wants her to stay so they can talk or he can comfort her, but she leaves, crying all the way home, thinking she has “demeaned” herself to him.
At home, she tells the family they are going to live in a cave like the “troglodytes” (prehistoric people who lived in caves; also a term used to refer to solitary people). Mary Call assures Romey that they will continue to go to school and quiets Devola’s fears by naming the furniture they will bring to make the cave comfortable. None of the siblings bring up electricity. In spring time, they will wildcraft, make a lot of money, and start building their own house.
In the afternoon, Mary Call visits Roy Luther’s grave, but she doesn’t “feel his presence” (163), only hearing silence. She can barely remember how he sounded and looked when he was alive. She chooses a cave, hating the darkness and coldness but knowing it is the only option. When she returns, she finds Kiser, who has taxied himself from the hospital. Devola, resembling their mother with a “kind of grand, maternal dignity” (164), tells Mary Call that Kiser has paid his debts to his sister—the land and house are his—and that they are going to get married. Kiser believes that Roy Luther has put responsibilities on Mary Call that are not appropriate for her. Feeling woozy, they look at her in concern; she is grossed out at their expressions of “kind anxiety” and love. After reiterating that she is strong enough and cannot let them marry, she faints.
Chapter 14 Summary
Mary Call admits that she and her father “erred a little in our judgment of Devola” (167), stating that Devola has changed and seems fully capable of marrying Kiser Pease. Romey wants Kiser to pay for Devola’s wedding outfit, but Mary Call believes that no real Luther would allow that.
They gather in Kiser’s living room for the ceremony. Devola and Kiser marry, both obviously in love with one another. Mary Call makes Kiser promise to take care of Devola, and she reiterates that the family does not need his charity. Kiser reveals that he has become guardians of the Luther siblings. Mary Call accepts this.
She feels strange at home without Devola. She teaches Ima Dean how to read, and she starts making rope for money throughout the winter with Romey, using a machine paid for by Mr. Connell. Roping at home, the rooms full of fragrance, Mary Call feels like the “hardest of our worries were gone” (171). Kiser works out the legality of Roy Luther’s death with the county; Roy Luther can remain buried on Old Joshua. Kiser offers concern about the siblings’ wildcrafting pursuits, but Mary Call states firmly that their herb picking is the most “right” thing in the world. She notices but doesn’t say anything about the fact that Kiser has new white teeth.
Chapter 15 Summary
To Mary Call’s delight, spring arrives, ending the harsh conditions of winter. Part of her believed that winter would never end. But it does come, “silently unfolding, pushing, pulling, budding, splitting” (173-74). The valley turns green, the birds sing and fly across the sky in curious shapes, and everything feels alive and happy. The wildflowers, too, have blossomed.
One weekend, Romey, Ima Dean, and Mary Call travel to Trial Creek to the tall, towering Gilead trees. They collect the buds of the tree, covering their fingers in its wax. Romey and Ima Dean don’t pay attention to Mary Call when she tries to correct their mountain-people lingo. She thinks of the future and all that they will harvest, coming back again and again to the mountain and its creeks. She thinks of all the herbs and flowers they will collect; she cannot even write out all of the names of the plants because there are so many. She reflects on the diversity of plant life in North Carolina, their discovery of these plants, and their education about them.
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
In the novel’s final section, the authors provide perspectives outside of Mary Call’s myopic point of view. By having Kiser explicitly state that Roy Luther has put too much responsibility on Mary Call, the authors reveal more complexity in Roy Luther and Mary Call’s father-daughter relationship. Taking her father’s demands seriously and never doubting their rationale, Mary Call at first values allegiance to Roy Luther as her father—which means obeying anything that he says—over her usually prioritized intellect. Even though Mary Call considers him weak and spineless, her loyalty trumps her values of reasoning and critical thinking. The Cleaver authors show that Mary Call’s loyalty to family transcends any other value.
Fleshing out Mary Call’s emotional character, the authors continue to note her increasing inability to not cry. Crying becomes a motif in the novel, relating to the themes of Processing Grief at a Young Age and Survival in a Harsh Environment. While Mary Call sees herself as a fully rational being—believing signs of emotion to be weak—she is an emotional character. The authors suggest that people need others in their life to notice what they try to hide or view as a weakness. The text conveys that, through hardships such as grief or the environment, a person cannot live alone or in a vacuum; otherwise, their views of the world and themselves become too distorted.
Devola’s marriage to Kiser demonstrates growth in Mary Call. Mary Call is able to listen to both Kiser and her sister and realize that her father could be wrong or that circumstances change the variables. Rather than staunchly following her father’s word—and thus prioritizing loyalty and promises made above all else—Mary Call allows herself to see the agency of others in her life and family. She is not unbending or recalcitrant; instead, she lets her experiences change and influence her. Although she criticized her father’s character, she placed him on a pedestal as the head of the family. In the end of the novel, she finds that her family members are capable as well, even noting that Romey is much better at roping than herself. She is able to see the value and intelligence that her siblings bring, as well as the more positive qualities of Kiser. The scene in which she visits her father’s grave but feels distant from him represents her new embrace of the family’s present state. His worldview and presence are becoming less real in the face of her family’s actual, existent needs and desires for autonomy and expression.
In the final chapter, the Cleavers focus on descriptions of place, especially spring and its effects on the landscape, the animals, and the Luthers. Winter, symbolizing all of their hardships, ends, and spring allows for blooming, a release of tension, and freedom. The last paragraph uses a repeated parallel sentence structure, or parallelism, of “[w]e would […]” to highlight Mary Call’s optimism and peace as she looks toward their wildcrafting future. The future is indelibly linked with the land and its fertility. She finds peace and satiation with the idea.
