How to Make Friends with the Dark

Tiger mentally lists all the things her mother will miss, from Tiger’s graduation to her eventual babies. This makes her throw up again. LaLa holds her hair and helps her like a mother would, but Tiger still misses June. She lies in bed after, sobbing into her pillow.

On the day of the viewing, Tiger takes a shower on LaLa’s request, but she refuses to wash the dress. She also forces down some crackers and apple slices, but she promptly throws up shortly after. Karen takes Tiger to the funeral home, as LaLa has to stay home with the little kids. Karen reassures Tiger that everything will be okay, and Tiger wishes people would stop saying that. Cake greets Tiger with a hug inside the funeral home, and though Tiger misses hanging out with her, the ache for her mother overpowers everything else.

A large number of people come to pay their respects to June, which surprises Tiger. Mae-Lynn Carpenter, a girl from school Tiger has never talked to before, offers Tiger her condolences and a hug. She whispers, “Welcome to the Big Suck. It’s going to be really bad” (118); this confuses Tiger. Randy Gonzalez invites Tiger to stop by the ranch sometime, telling her that June used to stop by often. Tiger wonders about all the things she didn’t know about her mother.

Walrus Jackson, the school counselor, invites her to join a grief group at school. He gives Tiger his number, inviting her to talk to him whenever she needs to. Tiger thinks about how Walrus must be redirecting the grief group members’ feelings away from sadness, and she wishes someone would just tell her “how to make friends with the dark” so she can learn to accept her sorrow (180).

When it is finally Tiger’s turn to go in, she wraps her arms around June’s body and cries for her to please come back. Eventually, Rhonda and Cake come in and take her away.

When Karen drops Tiger back at LuLu’s, she tells her she has found her a more permanent foster home elsewhere. Angry and afraid, Tiger wonders how many times she will have to move. She falls asleep crying, and when she wakes up, she overhears LaLa talking to the older boy, who is finally back. He asks to go out into the backyard for a bit to stretch and relax, saying his back is sore.

Curious, Tiger goes out as well, and she is shocked to find the boy smoking marijuana. She accosts him, but he assures her that LaLa won’t mind. He introduces himself as Thaddeus Roach and pulls up a lounger for Tiger to join him; she notices that he moves slowly, as if in pain.

Thaddeus reveals that this is his 14th home. His father is dead and his mother remarried, but she and his stepdad are deep into drugs. LaLa has adopted Thaddeus, but they don’t tell the little children this; they don’t want them to get their hopes up of something similar happening to them.

For the first time, Tiger acknowledges out loud that her mother is dead; she asks to try some of Thaddeus’s marijuana, but she changes her mind at the last minute. Leonard joins them outside, and when Tiger reproaches Thaddeus for smoking, Leonard explains that Thaddeus has a marijuana prescription for pain. His back broke once, and it didn’t heal right. Tiger doesn’t believe this, but Leonard tells her separately that it was Thaddeus’s stepfather who broke his back.

After they go back inside, Tiger feels overwhelmed about everything and contemplates suicide, remembering three seniors at her school who had died by suicide a couple of years ago. She texts Cake about this, and Cake calls immediately and talks her down. Cake plays a variation of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” on her violin through the phone; this calms Tiger down, and she eventually drifts off to sleep.

Karen tells Tiger to be ready by eight o’clock the next morning to leave for her new home. She doesn’t know exactly how long Tiger will be there, but she asks her to just stick things out for the next two years, until she is finally 18 and independent.

At dinner, Leonard and Sarah talk about their families. Leonard never knew his biological parents; he was taken away by the state as a baby because his father left him on top of a car. Sarah’s mother has always been in the hospital, and her father explicitly told her and her sister, Pookie, that he doesn’t care about them. They took to living in a cardboard box on the street until Sarah was finally picked up by the state.

Later that night, Tiger checks her voicemail and finds a message from Bonita, who was June’s colleague at the daycare. Bonita offers her condolences and reveals Tiger’s father’s identity, explaining that June was going to tell Tiger some day: His name is Dusty Franklin.

Stunned, Tiger tells Thaddeus, and they show LaLa the messages. LaLa calls Bonita and gives her Karen’s number. In the morning, LaLa tells Tiger that Karen is investigating further, but she tells Tiger to be prepared for disappointment in case things don’t work out.

Tiger’s move to the new home is put on hold. However, Leonard is suddenly taken away to another home by a social worker, which leaves Sarah distraught. LaLa calms her down, and she tells Tiger how Pookie was taken away by a man who promised to return for Sarah; she never saw either of them again.

Tiger texts Cake about the new developments, and with LaLa’s permission, Cake comes over immediately. She notes that Tiger is still wearing the same dress, guessing that it is because of her fight with June. She reassures Tiger that June would have forgiven her.

Tiger introduces Cake to Thaddeus, and when Karen arrives, the three of them learn more about Tiger’s father. Dustin “Dusty” Franklin is currently in prison, incarcerated for injuring someone while driving intoxicated; he has a history of arrests involving intoxication. June knew about this; Dustin indicated that they were in touch over the years.

While Dustin can’t care for Tiger since he is in prison, she also has a half-sister—Shayna Lee Franklin—who is 20 years old and lives in Hawaii. Shayna has agreed to be Tiger’s guardian. She will arrive by the end of the week.

Tiger, Thaddeus, and Cake rush to look up Shayna on the internet once Karen leaves. Tiger realizes that June must have been in a relationship with a married man, and she wonders at this since it seems so uncharacteristic of her mother. They find Shayna on Facebook; all her pictures feature her partying on the beach with friends, and Tiger wonders how this woman will be able to care for her. She begins to cry, but Thaddeus points out that she at least has some family; he tells her that she shouldn’t judge Shayna based on appearances.

Tiger thinks about her mother’s final moments: Tiger was kissing a boy after saying terrible things to June, and June was dying alone. Remembering her last words to June, Tiger feels like she will never be able to wash away her guilt.

Tiger asks LaLa if she can go back to school the next day. LaLa thinks it might be too soon, but Tiger doesn’t want to stay in the house. LaLa speaks to Karen, who okays it, and Thaddeus offers to drop her off. Tiger texts Cake on the way, asking her to meet by Tiger’s locker. However, Cake is running late, and when Tiger is by herself, listening to people murmuring around her, she starts to panic and sweat.

The school counselor, Walrus, finds her, revealing that Karen spoke to him about Tiger returning to school. He thinks it is a good idea for her to start slow, with half days initially. He also invites her to join a grief counseling group at school. However, Tiger is overwhelmed and angry, and she runs out to find that Thaddeus is still there. He invites her to come to work with him.

As Thaddeus drives, he confesses that he was waiting in case things didn’t go well for Tiger. Tiger texts Karen, asking her questions about Dustin. Karen reveals that Dustin offered his condolences, but she side-steps the question about whether Dustin wants to see her. Karen suggests that all three of them—Shayna included—could benefit from therapy. Tiger and Thaddeus arrive at his workplace, and Tiger is surprised to discover that he works at the ranch. She watches the horses that June loved gallop toward them.

Thaddeus shows Tiger to a trailer and steps away to get some food. Cake texts and asks for June’s full name and birthdate to do some independent investigating. Tiger looks up Shayna on Thaddeus’s computer and discovers a recent Facebook post of her on a plane from Hawaii to Tucson.

After Thaddeus returns, Tiger asks about his back injury. Thaddeus explains that his stepfather was always hitting him. He tried to pass off the back injury as an accident, but the doctors realized what happened, and his stepfather was sent to jail. Thaddeus’s mother was sent to rehab, and she gave him up to the state. Later, they both got out, got together again, and had Thaddeus’s baby sister, Jax. Thaddeus was away visiting her in Phoenix, and she is the only reason he returns to his mother’s home at all. Thaddeus notes, “Sometimes you’d do anything to protect your family. It’s just something you know, deep inside” (190). Tiger thinks about how she has a sister of her own now, too.

At night, Sarah asks if Tiger is going to her family soon; she wishes that she and Tiger could be sisters since Pookie got taken away. Tiger comforts her and asks her about the time when she was unhoused. Sarah describes how she and Pookie would move often to avoid people’s questions. She thinks that the man who took Pookie gave her a home, though he didn’t have room for Sarah.

Sarah is sorry about Tiger’s mother, and she suggests that June might come back like how a princess in her storybook wakes up because of love. Tiger doesn’t have the heart to correct her. After Sarah falls asleep, Tiger texts Cake that she is feeling lonely and scared. Cake sends back 60 heart emojis, which Tiger counts over and over to calm herself down.

Tiger thinks about how she will forever look for signs in the world that her mother is sending her a message. She wonders if June will visit her in her dreams, and “the girl-bug stops her pacing and waits hopefully” (195). However, her dreams are gray, bleak, and empty.

Tiger wakes up in the middle of the night with no memory of her dreams. She checks the time and calculates that it has been 11,795 minutes since June died.

LaLa speaks to Tiger’s teachers; they believe that returning to a routine will be good for her. Although unsure about going back to school again, Tiger decides to try it. However, she refuses to change out of her dress. LaLa gives Tiger a hat and a pair of boots to go with the outfit so that it looks complete and may fend off some teasing.

Cake messages Tiger and says that she discovered Dustin was a history teacher. He also struggled with alcoholism and has many priors.

At school, Tiger does her best to ignore the whispers and giggles. Lupe isn’t present at zero period to tease her, but Tiger feels Mae-Lynn staring intensely. Tiger dreads biology class, but Kai’s seat is empty when she arrives. To her surprise, Taran asks her about her situation, sincerely offering his condolences about June. When Kai finally arrives, he sees Tiger and switches seats with someone else.

After class, Cake informs Tiger that the funeral home called; June’s ashes are ready to be picked up.

Cake accompanies Tiger to the funeral home. Tiger is given June’s ashes in three drawstring bags. She is informed that the death certificates and coroner’s report will be mailed later. Tiger learns that she may need a number of original copies of the death certificate to deal with any outstanding bills and payments; she wonders who will manage these for her now. Cake asks Tiger if she wants to spread June’s ashes somewhere, but Tiger doesn’t want to think about this yet. She gets a text from Thaddeus, encouraging her to “[h]ang in there” (209).

As Cake and Tiger arrive at LaLa’s, Tiger is surprised to see Karen’s car in the driveway. Then, she realizes that her sister has arrived. Tiger doesn’t feel ready to meet her, but Cake nudges her forward. Shayna is waiting inside, and the first thing she does is ask Tiger, “What […] [are] you freaking wearing?” (211).