Summary
Mr. Loomis’ fever climbs to 106 degrees. Mr. Loomis sleeps for most of the time and is usually delirious. He thinks Edward is here and threatening him with something vague and dreadful. At least it is vague to Ann. She begins to realize that something happened between Mr. Loomis and Edward. Sometimes Mr. Loomis acts as if Ann is Edward and that Edward is in the house. In his delusions, Mr. Loomis tells Edward to stay back. Then Ann brings him breakfast and iced tea. Intermittently, Mr. Loomis calls Edward a thief and that he will steal the suit. Ann finds the dream to be contagious, partly because there are only two of them, and his thoughts affect hers more than they would if she had others to talk to. Ann brings the suit in from the wagon, but a few minutes later that particular nightmare ends, and another one begins.
This time, Mr. Loomis is back in Ithaca having a quarrel with Edward. As always, Mr. Loomis is carrying on a conversation, and Ann can hear only half of it. Mr. Loomis and Edward are locked up in an underground laboratory, apparently alone. They have a radio so they know what is happening in the world outside. Edward is married and has a wild hope that some people might have survived; he wants to use the suit to go out and look for his family. Mr. Loomis is not married and does not want Edward to take the suit. He asks Edward about the assurance that he (Edward) will bring the suit back. What if something goes wrong? Edward keeps pleading, and Mr. Loomis is shouting in anger and dread in the nightmare. Then, Edward is pleading because Mr. Loomis is holding a gun. He calls Edward a thief and a liar. He warns Edward that he will shoot him, and that the suit will not protect him from bullets.
A few minutes later he falls asleep. Ann decides to look at the suit to see if her suspicions are true: there are holes across the middle of the chest patched up with new plastic. If Edward was inside the suit when the bullets were fired, then he was certainly killed. While Mr. Loomis is asleep, Ann takes her Bible to the church that afternoon. Ann sits in the front pew, where the light is best, and reads the Bible for half an hour and prays for Mr. Loomis.
Mr. Loomis lives through the night. Ann visits the church again, and sees a baby crow that fell to the floor from a nest built on the church’s roof. She brings it outside and reunites it with her parents. Mr. Loomis has not gotten better, and so Ann decides to read Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” All the while, Ann tries to sympathize with Mr. Loomis as to why he may have killed Edward. But she also considers that it is possible that Mr. Loomis was trying to keep the suit for himself. Ann notes that she can only speculate, and Mr. Loomis does not want to tell what happened. The next morning, she goes to church, and on the way back she picks some flowers. Ann sits by Mr. Loomis’s bed and monitors his respiration as best she can. Afterwards, she plays the piano for half an hour, hoping it will penetrate to wherever he is.
The next day, he is definitely better, but does not wake up. Ann changes his bed sheets and daydreams about reading new books. The next day, Mr. Loomis opens his eyes. While she is waiting for her custard to cool, Ann decides to bring the stove and the firebox from the barn to the house with the tractor. Reassembling the stove is more challenging then she thought, but she eventually finishes putting it back together.
A week passes, and Ann’s birthday arrives. She makes roast and a cake for dinner that day. In addition to her birthday, they celebrate Mr. Loomis’ recovery. He still cannot walk, but is well enough to feed himself. Ann is worried about the harvest and the crops, which are a month behind schedule. All of these are important problems, and Ann thought they could solve them if she got to work quickly. A few days later, Mr. Loomis does two surprising things. The first one, Ann considers a kind scolding. He asks if the tractor is still running and how the planting is going. He acts very disturbed at the fact that Ann still has not planted the corn and soybeans. She says that she could not plant because she was watching after him. Ann begins to worry because Mr. Loomis does not understand why she went to church and how much she wanted him to live. Ann realizes that the change in behavior has to do with the fact that though he is not completely recovered, he has realized that he is going to live. And so, he considers the valley as much his as Ann’s. The other surprising thing is that he tries to get up, but falls instead.
During the week, Mr. Loomis learns to walk again – but only very weakly, while holding on to the walls and different objects. The first three days, he tries and fails. Mr. Loomis eventually begins working on his generator schematics again; he needs more technical books. Ann suggests going to the library in the next town over to get them, and says that she could take the suit to protect herself from radioactivity. Mr. Loomis tells her to never touch the suit and to stay away from it. Mr. Loomis begins to take charge of the future and says that they need to plan for the long term so that the valley sustains life permanently.
Analysis
What was once budding into a friendly and genial relationship slowly turns into little more than an uncomfortable and undesired living arrangement, especially for Ann. Mr. Loomis not only begins to take charge and exhibit aggression towards Ann, but also demonstrates he can be dangerous when angry and is not afraid to kill, based on what Ann can gather about the confrontation that Mr. Loomis had with Edward.
This places Ann in a difficult situation: on one hand, she is just getting used to the idea and experience of having someone to share her feelings, activities, and life with, but on the other hand, that person is turning out to be someone who threatens to compromise the lonely yet peaceful life she was living before he came along. She prays for Mr. Loomis and tends to his needs and wants, yet he immediately begins to act rudely and disrespectful towards Ann.
Here, Ann realizes that she will actually have to share the valley with someone who is not transient, but plans on staying alive once he has realized that his sickness will soon subside. He also attempts – without successfully evading Ann’s watchful eye – to walk by himself and get better on his own.
Mr. Loomis also comes to the conclusion that his dominance over Ann is partly emotional and partly physical. If he can use her compassion and kindness in his favor, he will be able to coerce her into doing things that he wants. However, she is no naïve teenager and possesses the skills, knowledge, and physique to put Mr. Loomis’s plans (whatever they may be) in extreme jeopardy if he acts too harshly towards her.
Mr. Loomis’s change in behavior represents the rising action in the story, and visits a premonitory impression upon Ann, warning her to take note of how things could get worse. At first, she is caught off guard, and so complies with Mr. Loomis’s commands (rather than becoming too defensive). Later we will see that since she did not exert her authority early enough, she is placed in a very difficult situation.
