Summary
Chapter 6
Maeve comes home after she graduates Barnard, and she gets an apartment in Jenkintown. She continues working at Otterson’s, and Danny knows that she does so because she wants to be around while he finishes high school. The work is very easy for her.
Danny is rarely at home, and Andrea and the girls do their own thing. It seems clear that Cyril married the wrong woman, but everyone keeps to their own corner and is more or less fine. Danny goes to his father’s building sites with sandwiches sometimes, and the two eat them together and do work. Danny feels at home on a building site.
Sadly, Cyril dies when Danny is fifteen. It is a boiling hot day and Cyril is in poor shape. He climbs to the fifth floor of a nearly completed office building with no electricity yet (thus, no elevator or air conditioning). He sits down, falls, and crashes down. His project manager takes him to the hospital, where he dies.
When Danny is first called out of school, he is worried that it is bad news about Maeve and—he is so grateful that it is not. Danny and Maeve visit their deceased father before he is taken away, and Maeve kisses him gently. Maeve has to sign papers and they go home.
At the house, they cry with Sandy and Jocelyn, and, to Danny’s shock, he realizes no one has told Andrea the news. Andrea enters the kitchen, drawn by the howling of grief; she has a look of shock on her face and asks where her girls are. They tell her their father is dead.
Later, they come to understand that they had never given Andrea a thought, a cruel act which Andrea holds onto forever. Perhaps things would have been different if someone had called Andrea, but no had. Her hurt was “her prize blue ribbon” (83).
The house is too sad, so Danny goes back to school. Andrea also holds it against the children that she has to have Cyril buried in a Catholic cemetery while she is in the Protestant one.
Though Danny does not often think of his mother, he does think of her on the day of his father’s funeral. He longs for her comfort. The house is filled with flowers, a testament to Cyril’s place in the community—something Andrea never understood. Sandy and Jocelyn are hurt because they are not given the day off to mourn.
Danny looks back and thinks about how concerned he was for Andrea; she had cried for four days and every minute of the funeral. Everyone there hugs him and comforts him, and it feels like a dream. He has no idea how his family has shifted away from him. Maeve will go back to school and then it will just be him with Andrea, the girls, Sandy, and Jocelyn. He is supposed to be with his father, he thinks.
On the day of the funeral, Danny is struck with how impossible the Dutch House is. It is so large, so ornate, and so heavy. He drinks a glass of wine in the bathroom to get through it all.
Not long after the funeral, the first shots are fired. Maeve suggests that she will quit Otterson’s and go to work at Conroy’s for the time being to take care of payroll and taxes. Andrea says no firmly, which surprises the siblings. Maeve says that she can handle it, but Andrea says nothing. Andrea then nods slowly but does not elaborate. Finally, she starts talking about Maeve’s hair, saying that her mother would have made her cut it and her father should have. It is an odd comment that surprises everyone.
Danny then tries to change the subject and says he will go collect the rents Saturday. Andrea replies that it is not necessary. Silence falls. Andrea wonders aloud why it is taking so long for Sandy to bring her the coffee she wants.
Two weeks pass. Danny mourns his father and the plan he’d had. He assumed he would have the business and knew it was what his father had planned for him. The girls stay close and Andrea avoids him.
One day, Danny comes home and Maeve flies in, concerned. She asks if he is okay; when he, confusedly, says he is fine, she says Andrea called her and told her to come to get her brother. They look around for Andrea and find her standing in front of the VanHoebeek portraits. Looking at Maeve, she tells her she needs to take Danny away, anywhere.
Andrea looks very chic, having apparently dressed for the occasion. She says matter-of-factly that Danny is not her child and she will not raise him. Maeve and Danny have always been terrible to her, she claims, and have never supported her. She states that Cyril left the house and business to her and the lawyer has confirmed it all. Her face shows her hatred.
Danny is confused, but Maeve knows what is happening here. She tells Andrea that the girls will hate her because they will know that she and Danny would not just leave them; they’ll hate her long after Maeve and Danny have forgotten who she is.
Maeve takes Danny upstairs and they pack him a suitcase. Downstairs, they find Sandy and Jocelyn crying. Andrea comes to the doorway of the kitchen and tells the sisters that they can go too, as all four of them have been together in this. Maeve asks what they’ve ever done to her, indignant at this news.
Jocelyn looks at Andrea and says evenly that what they did was know the children’s mother. Their mother was kind, generous, and a true beauty whom everyone loved. Maeve and Danny are shocked; neither of the sisters talked about Elna before. Before departing, Jocelyn tells Andrea that every day Andrea was in the house, they had asked each other what Cyril was thinking. Andrea has no words.
The four of them head downstairs and outside. They say goodbye and promise to be together soon. In the car, Maeve has to test her blood sugar and tells Danny to drive, even though he does not really know how to.
Looking back, Danny knows they were idiotic in what they packed and didn’t pack, leaving behind too many memories. Maeve at least has the photo albums, but Danny wishes he had taken the painting of his sister.
Maeve takes Danny to her apartment and insists that he sleep in the bed while she sleeps on the couch. Danny cannot sleep that night, thinking of how his father had protected him so well from what the world was capable of.
Chapter 7
Lawyer Gooch, which is what the siblings always call their father’s friend and family lawyer, meets for lunch with Maeve. When Maeve comes home, she tells Danny the truth that things are not good for them: they’ve been left nothing, as Andrea’s name is on everything and she can do what she wants. She tells Danny with an incredulous smile that Cyril had told Gooch that Andrea was a good mother and would look after the kids. There is no official will.
Maeve says that she and Danny will be fine because they are smart. Lawyer Gooch told her there are still a few things to discuss and he’d work for them for free. Danny wonders aloud about Andrea being so young with two dead husbands, and he says he feels sorry for the girls. Maeve exhales smoke and says they can all rot in hell. When Danny protests, she spits back that Andrea stole from them and so did her children, who are sleeping in their beds and eating off of their plates.
Maeve and Danny set up housekeeping together in the tiny apartment and make it work for a time. Sandy and Jocelyn come over for a reunion; it feels like they’ve been separated forever, but it has only been two weeks. They catch up, and Danny grumbles that Maeve won’t let him get a job. The sisters say that he needs to concentrate on his grades.
Jocelyn turns to Danny and says, even though Maeve is right there, that he has to keep an eye on her; she’s found her passed out before and she has to eat when she is stressed, or else take sugar tablets. Danny realizes that there are some things he does not know, and commits to making Maeve give him all the info about her diabetes.
Both sisters have found other jobs. Later in life, Danny feels regret for his own behavior that caused the two of them to lose their jobs.
Sandy asks why Maeve moved into this small apartment rather than into one of Cyril’s buildings, and she awkwardly but sincerely explains that she wanted him to be proud of her because she did it all on her own. Danny thinks sadly that Cyril never came here and never really knew of her self-reliance.
The four of them have coffee and cookie and obsess over all the negative things Andrea ever wore, said, or did. At one point, Jocelyn is laughing at what she said about Elna, and Danny does not understand. He asks if they thought she really was a saint. The two sisters grow quiet and say she was busy a lot working for the poor, but they did love her.
Maeve tries to get Danny to go to church with her that Sunday, but he refuses. He is surprised she goes regularly and he says that he only went because their father made them go. He does not really know why his father kept going to church, but he thinks it was a way to show respect for their absent mother, who was beloved there. It also became clear that Mass was the only place Cyril could avoid Andrea during the years they were married, and he managed to stretch it out almost all Sunday.
Lawyer Gooch convenes both siblings a week after Maeve’s initial meeting. He explains that there is a trust set up for Danny, Norma, and Bright in the realm of education (Cyril clearly thought Maeve was done with school). Maeve immediately becomes extremely attentive and excited, saying that Danny will be first and that he needs to go to college and graduate school. Out of the blue, Gooch asks if she knew he went to Choate, a prestigious boarding school. Maeve considers this and says she did not, and she asks if it is expensive. Gooch replies that it costs almost as much as college. The two of them decide that Danny will go to Choate.
After Maeve and Danny leave the office, he complains to her about the types of kids who go to boarding school and how he does not want to be one of them. Maeve is unmoved.
*
Maeve asks Danny what he is learning now and he replies it is pulmonology. It’s Easter break and they are sitting in the car in front of the Dutch House, the cherry blossoms in the Buchsbaums’ property abloom.
At one point, Danny makes a comment about his father’s knee, and Maeve looks at him like he’s crazy. It turns out Danny never knew exactly what happened to his father’s knee in the war—he broke his shoulder and hurt his knee in a parachute jump; he'd had surgery for the shoulder in France, but no attention was paid to the knee, which worsened over time. Maeve also remembers how her father liked the house but complained about how high it was and how his knee hurt him all the time, which was why he rarely went all the way upstairs.
*
Danny realizes that despite everything, he and Maeve are actually happy in those brief days in her apartment. It is a strange and suspended time, but it is happy until it is broken up by Danny going to Choate. It feels like the world is in motion and he cannot stop it. Maeve has made up her mind that Danny will go to Choate, college, and medical school. Danny tells her that he doesn’t even want to be a doctor, but Maeve brushes it off and says he can have fun after he gets off work at the hospital.
Part Two
Chapter 8
Danny is in Penn Station the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, annoyed that he is here fighting the miserable crowds because Maeve refused to come to New York. He knows that she hates New York because Barnard represented so much possibility for her that she had chosen to give up. She did come when his appendix burst during his freshman year at Columbia, telling her quietly that it was her first to go, then him.
Danny is at least grateful to have an hour on the train for Organic Chemistry, which he is trying to rally and pass. His professor, Dr. Able, had called him in and told him how important it was for pre-med to master these building blocks. Danny felt terrible for letting his grades slip, but he saw his professor’s point. He was surprised, though, when Able instructed him to start back in Chapter One and answer all the questions, throw them out, and do them again until they are all correct. Danny knows he cannot fail, for it is 1968: the draft is in full swing, and he does not want to go to Vietnam.
Danny takes a seat on the train, but he ends up helping several elderly women put their bags up. It continues apace until he finally gets to sit down. A blonde young woman tells him she saved his place, and she companionly shares that she took organic chemistry in high school. Danny is polite but says he needs his book back. He watches her read a slim volume of poetry.
They sit in comfortable silence for the ride to Newark. When they arrive, she suggests they talk so Danny doesn’t get roped into helping everyone on the train again. She asks if he is going home; he tells her that he is and shares where he is from; it turns out she is from Rydal, a neighboring town. They eventually turn back to their comfortable silence.
The train makes it to the final stop and the girl vanishes. Danny spots Maeve and greets her. The girl walks by and says goodbye brightly. Maeve is curious and asks if Danny met someone on the train. The girl introduces herself as Celeste, and Maeve introduces herself to her. Celeste walks away.
Danny compliments Maeve on her short hair, and she tells him how excited she is for him to be home. She asks him about the girl and he says she was fine. Maeve wonders if she needs a ride and asks where she is from. She goes over to Celeste and says they can take her to Rydal if she needs them to, and Celeste gratefully accepts.
*
Danny and Maeve are remembering this moment. They’re sitting in front of the Dutch House, years after Celeste and Danny dated, broke up, got back together, married, and had two kids; after he became a doctor and stopped being a doctor; before Maeve and Celeste hated each other.
Maeve wonders if Norma and Bright come home for Thanksgiving and if they married people Andrea hated. Danny feels sorry for these men; he points out that Maeve hates Celeste and thinks no one is good enough for him. She grudgingly understands his point.
Danny remembers, though, how Maeve picked out Celeste and how Maeve first loved Celeste. They have a pleasant drive to Rydal. Celeste says she was a sophomore at Thomas More College studying English, currently studying poetry. Maeve announces that poetry was her favorite class, and they bond over knowing a shared poem. Danny is privately incredulous, knowing that Maeve did not take poetry. Maeve also tells Celeste she was an accounting major, which Danny knows is not true since she was a math major.
Their drive continues, and they learn that Celeste is Catholic. Celeste brings the siblings in to meet her own brothers and her mother, who is so embarrassed to have forgotten to pick her daughter up. She invites them to stay for dinner but then remarks that they probably want to see their own family. They do not correct her, saying goodbye and heading out.
On the way out, Danny asks when Maeve had taken a poetry class. She says she took one when she saw the book in Celeste’s bag. She laughs and says she’s trying to protect her own interest, joking that a Catholic from Rydal is better than a Buddhist from Morocco.
Analysis
In this section, the foreshadowed break comes: Cyril dies and Andrea banishes the now-poor siblings from the Dutch House. Many of the particulars of this series of events derive from individuals’ misunderstanding of others or their willful ignorance. For example, Cyril does not have a will because he thinks he is too young to make one, and he assumes that Andrea would do what was right for his children. This ignores the reality of his household, for while Andrea may be a good mother to Norma and Bright, she clearly has no interest in Maeve and Danny. Another example concerns Andrea, who is certainly in the right to be saddened by her husband’s death and angry that she was not told earlier, but who also deludes herself into thinking that Danny, Maeve, Sandy, and Jocelyn were actively conspiring against her.
Danny and Maeve, of course, are not blameless in this whole thing, for they should have informed Andrea of Cyril's death earlier. Nevertheless, Patchett does not allow the reader to feel too much sympathy for Andrea. She was never particularly kind to the children; she had no interest in getting to know them; she seemed to not even care as much for Cyril as she did the house; when Cyril dies, she is unsparingly cold in her treatment of the children. It is not hard to root for the siblings, Sandy, and Jocelyn as they find ways to undermine Andrea. As we will see as the novel unfolds, though, there is a cost to Maeve and Danny’s righteous anger.
Danny and Maeve’s relationship had always been strong after their mother left and Andrea came into the picture, but it becomes immeasurably stronger after they are banished. They really only have each other, though they are lucky to still have Sandy, Jocelyn, and Mr. Otterson in their orbit. Maeve gives Danny a place to stay and helps him chart a course for his future. She gives him a home in all respects, whether it is a physical place for him to go or a mental space for him to find guidance, comfort, and solidarity. It might seem improper to look for shortcomings in the siblings’ relationship given the fact that they are simply trying to survive their shared childhood trauma, but, still, there are a few issues to be cognizant of.
First, Maeve steps in to take control of Danny’s life and sets him on a path he doesn’t actually want. He does not want to be a doctor and has always been interested in following in his father’s footsteps in real estate. Of course, Danny is a bit listless: he might need Maeve’s guidance and he does seem to ultimately profit from it. All the same, Danny does lose a little of his autonomy.
Second, Maeve loves her brother so deeply and feels so invested in his success and stability that she neglects herself. She does not further her education even though she is extremely intelligent; she has no discernible love life or friendships; she works at the same place for her whole life; she does not travel. She always defends her choices to Danny and others, saying this is what she wants to be doing with her life, but it is impossible for the reader to know whether to believe her or not. Has she convinced herself she is fine with the way her life turned out? Does she know her life isn’t what she wanted it to be but is ultimately fine with it for Danny’s sake? Or, is she actually happy with the way it is, and are people's attempts to convince her it isn’t enough more representative of their own assumptions and prejudices? The truth is, the reader will never know because Danny is the narrator, not Maeve, so it is our job to consider and evaluate the plausibility of all of these possibilities.
