Summary
Chapter 32. “All That’s My Mother” … 2001
In May 2001, Deborah, Zakariyya, and Rebecca head to Lengauer's lab. Because his lab is located at Hopkins, they walk past the same statue of Jesus that their mother walked past on her way to treatment for cancer.
Lengauer welcomes the family in, showing them the long freezers in which millions of Henrietta's cells are stored. Deborah says that she's amazed that all those cells are her mother. Lengauer points out that scientists need to be careful when handling the HeLa cells to avoid releasing them, and Deborah asks if this is related to the contamination problem, which impresses Lengauer. Deborah says that this was probably Henrietta's revenge for using her cells without permission, and everyone laughs.
Lengauer hands Deborah a vial of her mother's cells, and Deborah warms it in her hands, saying her mother is probably cold. She whispers to the vial, saying that Henrietta is famous, but no one knows it.
Lengauer takes the group to another part of the lab and shows them Henrietta's cells under a microscope. He carefully explains the process of cell division, and explains that all the information that made Henrietta herself is contained within these cells, in their DNA. He also tells Deborah that her mother's cancer was caused by a virus, so she is unlikely to develop the same disease herself. Deborah is relieved.
Through the microscope, Deborah and Zakariyya watch their mother's cells divide in culture. This is the closest they have been to their mother since her death nearly half a century ago, and they are very moved by it.
Lengauer says he thinks Hopkins really screwed up the HeLa situation, and Deborah is surprised to hear a white person finally acknowledge this. She points out that the HeLa cells did a lot of good for science, but she just wishes she knew more about who her mother was. She's not too concerned about the money.
Zakariyya is quiet for much of the visit, but he thanks Lengauer and Rebecca before he leaves. Deborah tells Rebecca she has just witnessed a miracle.
Chapter 33. The Hospital for the Negro Insane … 2001
Next, Deborah and Rebecca undertake a mission to figure out what happened to Deborah's sister Elsie. Deborah is already a little distressed because it's mother's day and her son Alfred is in jail, but he told her that she needs to find out whatever he can about the missing members of their family.
The two women drive to Crownsville, which was formerly known as the Hospital for the Negro Insane. The campus is beautiful, but the two get the impression of some dark history here. They wander around the building looking for the medical records office, before Deborah finally takes matters into her own hands and starts yelling to get someone's attention.
Rebecca and Deborah finally meet an employee named Paul Lurz, who explains that most of the medical records were destroyed when the area in which they were stored was contaminated with asbestos. He has saved only a few bags of them, and miraculously, Elsie Lacks' medical record is included in this pile.
In Elsie's medical record is a photo of her looking unkempt and crying, which a white woman's hand around her throat. Her autopsy report reveals that she spent five years at the hospital and died from internal bleeding from self-induced vomiting.
A supervisor arrives, demanding to know why they are going through the records. Deborah is prepared, however, and hands him legal documents showing her relationship to Elsie. The women are allowed to continue through the records.
They discover disturbing information. The hospital was grossly understaffed, and often housed abusive adults in with children. Also, there were many scientific experiments done without patient consent, including particularly gruesome experiments conducted on children with epilepsy. These included procedures that involved drilling holes or inserting metal rods in the skull. Given the fact that Elsie was in the hospital during this time period, it is likely that she was involved in these studies.
Deborah is devastated by the knowledge that her sister probably died alone and in pain, but tries to keep a brave face despite being near tears. She takes the photo of Elsie with her and thanks Paul Lurz. Deborah begins to grow increasingly erratic, insisting on keeping the photo of Elsie in the front seat of her car and showing it to everyone she meets.
When they stop for the night, Deborah says that she's finally ready to show Rebecca her mother's medical records.
Chapter 34. The Medical Records … 2001
A few minutes later, a jittery and anxious Deborah joins Rebecca in the room as Rebecca goes through Henrietta's medical records. Rebecca finds one record from shortly before Henrietta gave birth to Deborah; the doctor says her cervix looked healthy then.
Deborah shifts between joy at finding out new information about her mother and panic at each new fact. She does not allow Rebecca to photocopy the documents, so Rebecca must go through each one individually.
As Rebecca is going through Elsie's medical records, she identifies a term that Deborah asks Rebecca not to put in the book. Rebecca says she won't (and she doesn't) and she smiles slightly, admiring Deborah's protectiveness of her sister. Deborah interprets this as evidence that Rebecca is lying, and demands to know who she's working for. Deborah shoves Rebecca into a wall, and Rebecca tells her to back off. Deborah laughs and says she will. Deborah explains that she's extra suspicious of outsiders because of Cofield the con artist.
Deborah says she's going to bed, but then continues to check on Rebecca every few minutes, making up increasingly bizarre excuses each time. In the morning, Rebecca is exhausted and Deborah has broken out in massive hives and welts.
Chapter 35. Soul Cleansing … 2001
Deborah's case of hives worsens as she and Rebecca get closer to Clover. Deborah takes swigs from a bottle of Benadryl to control the hives, but it doesn't seem to be working.
Deborah and Rebecca visit Henrietta's grave, and Deborah insists that Rebecca take a photo of her with the picture of Elsie near her mother's grave, saying it will be the only photo of the three of them in the world.
The two women visit Deborah's aunt Gladys, but Deborah is acting strangely. Gladys' son Gary, who is a lay preacher, comes in. Deborah shows him the photo of Elsie from Crownsville, and Gary is shocked. Deborah paces and talks rapidly about the things that have been done to her mother's cells - they've been shot into space, injected into prisoners, infected with HIV. Rebecca explains what they've been through, and Gary tries to calm Deborah.
When Gary's usual methods of instilling calm don't work, he hugs Deborah and begins to recite verses from the Bible. Deborah says that she wants God to take the burden of the cells from her life, and Gary tells her that this is why Rebecca has come into her life - she will take on the burden of the cells instead. Rebecca is stunned, but the scene is so sincere and moving.
Deborah feels much better after this ritual, and the two women head outside into the rain, which Gary says has been sent by God to cleanse their souls.
Chapter 36. Heavenly Bodies … 2001
The next day, Deborah's hives have improved slightly but she decides to visit a doctor anyway. Rebecca tells Gary that she has a song from the previous night stuck in her head, and Gary says that this is God trying to tell her something.
Gary explains that he believes Henrietta's cells are her, that God has given her immortal life as promised by Jesus in the Bible. The HeLa line may not resemble Henrietta's physical body, but there are other Biblical passages (1 Corinthians 15:40) that explain that heavenly bodies given by God may not look like earthly bodies. Additionally, given the medical miracles accomplished with Henrietta's cells, Gary believes that Henrietta was an angel or spiritual being sent by God.
Rebecca realizes that the simple language of the Bible (for example, Jesus saying "I give them eternal life and they shall never die") is more evocative and moving for many members of the Lacks family than the jargon-laden language of scientific texts.
Chapter 37. “Nothing to Be Scared About” … 2001
The reason for Deborah's erratic behavior during her trip with Rebeccca becomes clear when her doctor diagnoses her with extremely high blood pressure and high blood sugar. She could have had a stroke.
Deborah is still planning to give a speech at the National Foundation for Cancer Research Conference, and she also plans to go back to school to study science, so that she can better understand how her mother's cells are being used. Moreover, her son Alfred is going to trial right after the conference.
The conference is suddenly canceled after September 11, with no plans to reschedule. Shortly after, Deborah has a stroke in church, and is saved by the ingenuity of her grandson Davon. She recovers well and is determined to learn more about her mother, but she doesn't have the money to continue with school. Instead, she focuses on getting her grandchildren educated.
A few months after, Rebecca attends the baptism of Sonny's granddaughter LaBrea. In the midst of the ceremony, Pullum pulls Rebecca up on the pulpit, saying that she has come to make sense of Henrietta's cells. Rebecca nervously explains a bit about the HeLa line, and Pullum says that someday the whole world will know who Henrietta was and what she did. Her little great-grandchild will also understand, and so will all of her siblings.
Chapter 38. The Long Road to Clover … 2009
Rebecca visits Clover, and is shocked to find that the abandoned buildings in the town have been torn down. There is nothing left except the post office. The Lacks family suffers a number of deaths and misfortunes. Gary, who performed the exorcism, dies of a heart attack. Then Fred, Cootie, and Day all die as well. Sonny undergoes a successful quadruple bypass survey, but wakes up $125,000 in debt because he did not have medical insurance.
Deborah ends up leaving her husband and moving into her own apartment in an assisted living facility. She only has about $742 in income per month, and tries to work more but her health continues to suffer.
Rebecca finishes the book and tries to call Deborah in order to read it to her, but Deborah doesn't answer the phone. Finally, Sonny tells Rebecca that Deborah died quietly in her sleep of a heart attack. Deborah was happy when she passed: her grandchildren were doing well in school, and she knew that Rebecca would tell Henrietta's story.
Rebecca recalls the time she spent with Deborah, and she rematches the BBC documentary in which a young Deborah was interviewed about her mother's cells. Rebecca remembers when Deborah said that heaven must look like Clover, Virginia. She says immortality doesn't sound all that great because you'd be lonely, but she also thinks that she'd be okay coming back as a HeLa cell line, so that she and her mother could do good in the world together.
Analysis
The Lacks family often treats the HeLa cells as though they were Henrietta; they speak to them as though they can hear (such as in Chapter 32 when Deborah warms a vial of her mother's cells in her hands, saying that she's cold), they refer to them as having agency and thought, and so on. From a scientific perspective, it seems peculiar to think of the cells as human, since they cannot see or think or feel. Yet as Lengauer points out, all the information (DNA) that made Henrietta who she was is present in these cells. Since every human being is made up of cells, Deborah and other members of the Lacks family treat Henrietta's cells as though she was a person.
Rebecca's depiction of Deborah is nuanced and masterful. She is not always an easy person to be friends with - she is paranoid and somewhat impulsive, even once becoming physically violent with Rebecca. However, the reader easily understands the meaning of these actions in the wide context of her character and experiences. She is used to having white people lie to her and mistreat her for their own gain, and she has lived with poverty and abuse for much of her life. Deborah is also a generous and forgiving person, as evidenced by her comment that the family cannot go into history with a hate attitude.
In addition to struggling with the legacy of her mother's cells, in Chapter 33 Deborah also must face the fact that she had a sister she never knew who died young and alone in a hospital for the insane. Henrietta's death was an enormous tragedy for Elsie Lacks, because Henrietta was the only one who visited her and tried to take care of her. Deborah and Rebecca can only find pieces of Elsie's story: a terrifying photo in which Elsie has a white woman's hands wrapped around her neck, an autopsy report, and evidence of horrific experiments conducted at the hospital in the same time period that Elsie was there. Deborah must deal with the difficult revelation that she had a sister, and that this sister probably died horribly when Deborah was only a baby.
This section depicts the central injustice faced by the Lacks family: their foremother's cells were taken without their consent and enabled many of the medical miracles of the 21st century, but they cannot afford health insurance. This fact is emphasized when Sonny undergoes emergency surgery and wakes up thousands of dollars in debt because he cannot afford health insurance.
The Biblical language also gives the Lacks family a sense of meaning for understanding what happened to Henrietta and what continues to happen to them. The soul cleansing in Chapter 35 and Gary's description of the meaning of Henrietta's contribution in Chapter 36 show that their religious faith and their understanding of science is interconnected. Gary believes that Henrietta is a divine being come to earth to help humanity; he believes that the immortality of the HeLa line is explained by a Biblical passage stating that all who believe in Jesus will have eternal life. Though this is not entirely accurate from a scientific point of view, it provides a much more emotionally satisfying answer than most scientific explanations.
