58 pages • 1 hour read
Philip BeardDear Zoe
Philip BeardFiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 32-34Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 32 Summary: “Picture”
Jimmy and Tess fall asleep. Her dad calls to say Frank will be okay, though he’ll need surgery for his leg, and he’ll wear a cast. Tess feels relieved but also an onslaught of nervous energy. While they wait for Tess’s dad to come home, Tess asks Jimmy if he’s okay, and he says yes. He says he feels he took advantage of Tess, but Tess assures him she didn’t do anything she didn’t want. He tells her he loves her. Tess’s Dad comes home and goes to bed, and Jimmy kisses Tess goodnight. He tells her he’d been watching her since the day she moved in, and when Tess asks why, Jimmy implies that it’s because she’s beautiful.
Tess can’t sleep and begins to pace in front of her dad’s room. Finally, she goes in and wakes him up because she needs to see a picture of Zoe. Her Dad says they’ll get it in the morning, but Tess insists, and her Dad agrees to drive her to her house.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Home”
Tess’s dad drives her to her house without speaking. He waits in the car, and Tess creeps into the house, feeling like she has to stay hidden. She notes that in Zoe’s room the crib and the little bed have been replaced by a tall, antique bed. Her room is the same, but she cannot find the photograph she’s looking for. She lies on her bed and looks at the constellations of glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling, and she cries as she realizes she’s not going to return to her dad’s house.
She goes into Em’s room and climbs in bed with her. Em asks her if she’s staying, and Tess says yes. They talk about Em’s new teacher, and then Tess asks if Em has the picture of Zoe that Tess used to keep tucked in her mirror. Em pulls it out from under her pillow, and Tess tells her to sleep with it tonight. Tess goes outside and tells her dad she’s sorry, but her dad says he knew Tess wouldn’t stay forever. He tells Tess Frank is her dog, and he and Tess hug before he drives away.
Before Tess goes back inside, she stands at the place in the grass where Zoe lay at Tess’s feet after being struck by the car. She takes off her shoes and socks and stands there, feeling the grass. She looks up, and Em is tapping at the window, telling her to come inside.
Chapter 34 Summary: “Z”
Tess’s mom cries when she sees Tess in bed with Em the next morning, and David gives Tess “one of his best I-love-you-like-you’re-my-own hugs” (192). The four of them see a doctor together and talk about their grief. At the doctor’s, they discuss how all of them are numb to videos of September 11 and none of them feels the same way as others do about September 11, which is something important to realize they share. Tess starts school and talks with her dad often, and she goes to church every other Sunday with him, Gram, and Mo Mo. Her dad gives Frank to Tess, and sometimes Frank sleeps with her.
Tess sees Jimmy all the time. They kiss a lot but haven’t had sex again. Tess objects to the phrase “lost virginity” and says it’s more complicated than that, and it doesn’t make you a woman.
On the anniversary of Zoe’s death, Tess and her family have plans to watch home videos and not to think about the outside world. Tess carries around the picture of Zoe and looks at it often, and it makes her feel good. In the photo Zoe is on a tree swing, but Tess can remember everyone else out of frame.
Tess thinks she was wrong that nothing changes, and she’s beginning to see that everything changes: “Maybe ‘Z’ is the shape of everyone’s life” (195). She knows good and bad things can happen that aren’t anyone’s fault. She doesn’t say she’s okay, and she’ll always miss Zoe, and her family will never be the same. They have good and bad days, but she feels there’s enough love to go around. She signs her name and “love always” at the end of her final letter.
Chapters 32-34 Analysis
Jimmy finally knows about Zoe, but he reiterates that he loves Tess and asks, “when you’re putting on all that makeup and looking at yourself, don’t you ever really look at yourself?” (179). His question implies that he understands Tess beyond the superficial level; by learning about Zoe, he has connected with her more intimately. Rather than running away or abandoning her, however, Jimmy reaffirms his love for Tess, demonstrating the strength of their connection.
Telling the story of Zoe’s death to Jimmy is a cathartic experience for Tess, prompting her to seek out more ways to remember and connect with her lost sister. Tess’s desperate and sudden desire to see a picture of Zoe reflects her desperation to confront her loss and her grief: She needs to really look at her sister to face the difficult feelings she has been repressing.
Tess’s return to her mother and David’s house follows the structure of a traditional hero’s journey, in which the hero returns home after a time away. Zoe’s redone room, while different, doesn’t inspire the same feelings and betrayal within Tess, suggesting an evolution in her relationship to her grief. Tess crawls in bed with Em, demonstrating the intimate sisterly bond between them. Outside, Tess confronts the very moment of Zoe’s death by standing in the spot where Zoe “landed at my feet” (190). She stands barefoot in the grass, and while at first the world is silent as it was when Zoe died, soon Tess can “hear everything,” suggesting healing and catharsis.
The novel’s end reveals Tess and her relationships with her family to be a work-in-progress, sharing moments of togetherness even while they struggle with the loss of Zoe. Tess maintains her relationship with Jimmy, suggesting that their emotional connection endures, even if their physical connection is limited to kissing. She asserts that sex does not make her more mature, complicating the trope of losing one’s innocence: “It doesn’t mysteriously make you a woman. It just makes you a girl who’s done it” (194). Her coming of age is more internal, defined by her understanding of change rather than by a physical act. She revises her declaration that “nothing changes everything” (195), saying now that “everything changes everything” (195), representing a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the randomness of life. Tess comes to understand that a life is not linear but rather can be represented by a Z, doubly meaningful given that this was Zoe’s nickname. Tess learns to let the bad days coexist with the good days, and to feel happiness and grief simultaneously.
Tess carries the photograph of Zoe around with her and looks at it frequently; significantly, her internalized grief has become externalized in the form of a photograph, something Tess carries and looks at when she chooses. At the end of the novel, Tess signs her name, reminding readers that the entire novel has been a long letter to Zoe, hence the book’s title.
Unlock all 58 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: