We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves: Part 5, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

Rosemary now realizes that there is something profoundly “NotSame” about her and Fern, which is the fact that Fern is property that can be bought and sold. Lowell says that Rosemary’s father originally tried to keep working with Fern after the family project ended, but it was too expensive and the university refused. There was nothing he could have done to stop it. Lowell explains that he has someone keeping an eye on Fern in South Dakota, and that at least the cruel professor overseeing the lab retired five years ago. At one point, Lowell paid someone to take Fern to a sanctuary in Florida, but the man ended up taking another chimp in Fern’s place. This chimp was then beaten to death.

Lowell explains that because Fern grew up with them, she is not interested in sex with other chimps and has thus been artificially inseminated. She has had three children, two of whom were sold to another lab. Fern’s youngest child, Hazel, is now two years old, and Fern is teaching her to sign. Lowell says that Hazel is extremely smart and is already making up signs of her own. Lowell returns to the moment after he saw Fern at the lab in South Dakota, admitting that he’d been naïve to assume he would be able to rescue her by himself. He then heard about a group of animal activists going up to Riverside and decided to join them.

Lowell tells Rosemary that he hadn’t planned to leave the family forever; he simply wanted to rescue Fern before doing anything else. However, getting in trouble with the FBI meant that he couldn’t go back to see Fern, or the rest of his family, or to college. Rosemary and Lowell leave the diner and walk to the train station. Rosemary is dismayed that her brother is leaving so soon, but Lowell says it is “too risky” for him to stay. He tells her that looking out for Fern is her job now. While Lowell buys his train ticket, Rosemary sobs. They hug, and Rosemary smells Harlow’s perfume on him.

Rosemary says she knows Lowell blames her for Fern’s disappearance. At first he disagrees, but then says that she forced their parents to “choose” and says that “you were always such a jealous little kid.” Yet he still urges her not to blame herself, as she was only five at the time. Lowell says he’s glad that Rosemary has a friend in Harlow. As the train leaves, Rosemary hears the voice of Mary saying: “You love Fern.” She thinks about all the moments in her life when she’d wished Fern had also been there; at the same time, she knows that Lowell is right, that she was jealous of Fern and still is.