52 pages • 1 hour read
The Better Sister
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Part 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section features depictions of substance use, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and suicidal ideation.
Part 4: “Chloe”
Part 4, Chapter 38 Summary: “Three Weeks Later”
Chloe, Nicky, and Ethan prepare to celebrate Christmas together. One day, Chloe opens an envelope addressed to Ethan from the Cuyahoga County Clerk of Courts. She discovers that eight months earlier, Ethan requested the documents related to Adam’s custody battle with Nicky.
Part 4, Chapter 39 Summary
Retrieving Ethan’s burner phone, Chloe checks his list of contacts, confirming that the number linked to “N” is Nicky’s. When Chloe confronts her, Nicky admits that Ethan secretly contacted her a year earlier, wanting to get to know her. Fearing that Chloe and Adam would object to this contact, she bought him the burner phone.
During their conversations, Ethan disclosed how his father regularly hurt Chloe. He also revealed Adam’s claim that Ethan experienced uncontrollable rages after smoking marijuana. As Ethan had no memory of these episodes, he set up a webcam and proved his father was gaslighting him. The evidence of Adam’s dishonesty led Ethan to accuse his father of lying about the swimming pool incident. Shortly afterward, Adam threatened Ethan with military school.
Among the court documents, Chloe finds a police report recounting that when Nicky resisted being rescued by Adam from the swimming pool, she said, “I’ll be an angel over Wallace Lake” (296).
