The Truth According to Us

While following a local boy for Geraldine’s Army, Willa is intercepted by Mrs. Fox. Remembering that Mrs. Fox had called Jottie a “saint” for comforting Mr. Hamilton, Willa accepts her offer of lemonade and uses the opportunity to ask questions about Jottie and Vause. According to Mrs. Fox, Vause was popular and praised as a teenager but changed during his wartime service. When he returned home, he failed to get a job, deciding instead to steal $6,000 from Willa’s grandfather and burn the factory to cover his tracks. Mrs. Fox alludes to Jottie having her heart broken by Vause but quickly backtracks when Willa asks follow-up questions.

When Willa arrives home, she hugs Jottie and asks her why she never married. Jottie counters by asking her what her “type” would be, and Willa giggles at the question. Still, she realizes that Jottie’s description of a hypothetical man who would be “clear-truthful” must be connected to Vause, who was apparently not those things.  

Jottie motivates herself to follow through on her intention to join a ladies’ club but finds herself lost in a memory from childhood. Her mother had been president of the Rose League, which was meeting at their house. The ladies had complimented the olive whip sandwiches, and Mrs. Romeyn sent Jottie to the kitchen for more. The young Jottie averted the crisis by claiming that Felix and Vause stole the remaining olive whip, and, fortunately, the boys played along and charmed the women present. They sauntered off, leaving Jottie envying their freedom. In the present of the narrative, Jottie reluctantly makes the call and is enthusiastically invited to the next meeting of the ladies’ club.

Willa and Bird accompany their aunts to check on the three family farms, all of which are struggling. On the way, they deliver food to Sam Spurling, who lives in squalor on their north farm, with hundreds of cats. As they drive away, Willa wonders what might have happened to Sam to make him the way he is.

Next, they stop to see aunt Mae and her husband, Waldon, their favorite uncle. Willa goes into the house to use the bathroom, and as she is coming out, she sees her aunt and uncle kissing passionately in the kitchen. She is withdrawn and pensive for the remainder of the trip, much to Bird’s frustration.

Emmett is waiting at the house when Jottie and her nieces return home. He starts talking to his sister about Sol, but they cut the conversation short when they hear Felix and Layla talking to each other. Upon being introduced to Layla, Emmett realizes that she was the woman who greeted him in town. Felix and Layla leave to visit more historical sites, and Jottie shoos Willa into the kitchen so that she can talk to Emmett. However, Willa lingers long enough to listen in on their conversation. She hears Emmett complain about the ease with which Felix moves through the world and attracts women, before the topics turn to labor unrest at American Everlasting. Emmett tells Jottie that he’d advised the men to form a union, and she worries that they will lose their jobs if they do. Emmett eventually brings her around to his point of view, promising to give Sol a heads-up about any labor actions.

Layla and Felix visit Dolly’s Ford, where they talk about Layla’s historical research and her encounter with Parker Davies. They flirt with each other, and Felix says that he’ll take her someplace cooler than it is outdoors.

Meanwhile, Emmett leaves Sol’s house. Sol agrees with Emmett’s view that the workers should unionize but worries that Shank will fire anyone who tries. Sol asks after Jottie, and Emmett conveys her good wishes. After Emmett leaves, Sol turns to his sister and remarks, “You and I should stay away from the Romeyns” (141).

Willa is reading when he is interrupted by her father, who says he is going away to make a business delivery. She sneaks to his office and is both baffled and jealous to see Layla there.

Two brief flirtatious letters between Felix and Layla refer to their trip to Ice Mountain after Dolly’s Ford. A short excerpt from Layla’s history describes the history of Dolly’s Ford and Ice Mountain, “a formation of stone chimneys where ice can be found on even the hottest summer days” (145).

The narrative focus shifts to Jottie, who is charmed by Layla’s wit and beauty over dinner and worried about her relationship with the womanizer Felix.

At dinner, Emmett contemplates Layla’s “splendor,” which makes him shyer than usual. Jottie tries to keep the conversation going while her mind is preoccupied with the burgeoning romance between Layla and Felix. Jottie wants to warn her about her brother but recalls that other women never heeded those warnings. She also worries about Willa growing up and asking about sex. Finally, she manages to get Emmett talking about his work as a high school teacher. The dinner conversation is cut short when some neighborhood children come looking for Willa and Bird, prompting Jottie to briefly allude to Vause and Felix. Emmett helps Jottie wash the dishes and rebukes her for letting Felix get between her and Sol, who has been pursuing Jottie for two decades. Felix never forgave Sol for blaming him, rather than Vause, for the fire at the factory, and Jottie felt compelled to believe in her brother’s innocence. Emmett tries to comfort her, knowing the sacrifices she’s made over the years—including giving up the chance to attend college. She speculates about what her life might have been like if the fire had never happened.

At bedtime, Willa asks for a story about her father as a boy. Jottie recalls that Felix was once given a bow and arrow and resolved to play “William Tell.” He stood poised to shoot an apple off of Jottie’s head when Sol intervened. Felix forced Sol to take his sister’s place. When Felix shot the apple, narrowly missing Sol, Vause, who had not expected his friend to go through with the plan, ran after Felix and punched him in the nose. After Jottie says goodnight, Willa reflects that the story is not “really over” and that many questions remain unanswered.

Willa and Bird go to Sunday school with Miss Cladine, who always regales her class with colorful retellings of Bible stories. Willa imagines her father and Layla as Samson and Delilah.

That afternoon, Layla contemplates how invested she’s become in Macedonia—and in Felix—in the six days she’s been there. She listens to Jottie bake with her nieces in the kitchen, finally asking where Mae and Minerva are. Bird explains that her twin aunts are each married. Jottie later elaborates, explaining that the twins couldn’t stand to live apart, so they only stay with their husbands on the weekends. Jottie also tells Layla about Felix’s divorce. Jottie calls Felix “fickle” when it comes to women, but Layla assumes that he’s just misunderstood.

Later, Jottie recalls Felix’s kindness after the fire, when she was shattered by Vause’s betrayal and death. Felix made sure that she got dressed and went for walks, and he also defended her mourning against their mother’s criticism.

Felix leaves on a business trip to Ohio, and, for the first time, Willa wonders what his business is. Willa visits Geraldine but doesn’t stay long because Geraldine keeps asking about Willa’s mother, Sylvia. Willa says that she’s in a “leper colony” but knows that she really lives in another town with a married man. Willa and Bird visit Sylvia twice a year, but the visits are always very awkward.

In town, Willa is surprised to see her father and follows him to the home of Tare Russell. He enters through the back of the lavish house.

Meanwhile, Jottie struggles to maintain her cheerfulness as she leaves the Daughters of Macedon meeting with other members. She seeks refuge in an ice cream parlor she often frequented with Vause. She orders a chocolate soda, which Vause, not she, liked, but drinks it obediently as the ice cream parlor’s owner watches. As the factory closes down for the evening, she sees Sol walking past and fantasizes about marrying him, imagining that, with Sol as a father figure, Willa would finally be “safe” (174). Still, she dismisses the idea, assuming that Sol has a full life that would never include her.

Layla sends a brief missive to her uncle Ben, followed by a lengthy letter to her friend Rose, in which she confesses her feelings for Felix.

An excerpt from Layla’s History of Macedonia describes the scandalous story of the Reverend Goodacre, who impregnated two of his parishioners before being exposed by a deacon called Jervis Offut, backed up by the reverend’s own sister, who is nonspeaking. After reading through this account in the library, Miss Betts warns Layla that it is “provocative” and goes against the opinion of many who believe that the reverend was wronged.

An account of a prank that a young Felix played at her family’s funeral parlor and the various reactions it provoked leads Miss Betts to reflect on the impossibility of true objectivity and the implications of this for the historian. She asks Layla what she wants her History of Macedonia to be, and Layla denies having any agenda, although she privately realizes that this is far from being the case.

Willa discovers a copy of the novel Jane Eyre and reads it “straight through” three times. She realizes that her father has come home when she sees that he has left money under the sugar bowl. Looking upstairs for him, she finds his door closed and wanders into Layla’s room instead. She is sorely tempted to examine a note from her father to Layla but is distracted by Jottie’s voice.

Felix joins the family and Layla at dinnertime as the narrative perspective shifts to Jottie. Increasingly frustrated with her brother’s “invincible” charm and thinking of Sol, she offers to show Layla around the mill.

The chapter opens with a letter from Layla’s former lover, Charles, expressing a patronizing interest in her work and asking if he can come and visit. Layla responds by reminding him of the disrespectful tones of his previous letter, informing him that she has met someone new and comparing him unfavorably to Felix.

Layla writes to Rose, expressing outrage at Charles’s presumption and reflecting that she probably only idolized him because her brother held him in high esteem. She advises her friend to consider marrying Mason, a childhood friend who was touchingly anxious for Rose’s welfare during a period of illness.

Willa has been periodically enlisted by an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Bucklew, to pick up bottles of whiskey from a local bootlegger, Mr. Houdyshell. Keen to uncover her father’s connection to Cooey’s Red Apple, she asks Mr. Houdyshell if her father is in the same line of work. Another man, Brennus Gower, who is working with Houdyshell and appears to have a grudge against Felix, calls after her that her father runs whiskey. Reflecting on what she has learned, Willa imagines herself and her father as romantic outlaws “like the Three Musketeers and Robin Hood” (210).

Layla and Jottie visit the mill. Layla is surprised to note how elegantly Jottie is dressed and how respectfully she is treated by everybody at the factory. While Layla interviews Shank, Jottie tours the factory with Sol. Sol asks if they can go to the movies, and Jottie agrees, despite her concerns about what Felix will think.

As Layla struggles to formulate a portrait of Shank, she is interrupted by Emmett, from whom she learns that Shank makes the workers sign a clause forbidding union membership when he hires them. As she freshens up back at the house, she is accosted by Felix, and the two begin kissing passionately until they are interrupted by Jottie.

That night, Jottie recalls how Vause offered to take the blame for her after she crashed her father’s car while enraged about a prank played by Felix. She struggles to reconcile this tender memory with her knowledge of Vause’s subsequent actions.

The next morning, Emmett arrives at breakfast with a jar of apple butter and a book on the history of the mills for Layla. Felix bursts in and scoops a liberal helping out of the jar, whisking Layla away. Jottie is saddened to see Emmett’s hurt and Willa’s abandonment.