This section depicts the tragedy of Henrietta’s children and the abuse they suffered after her death. As in Chapter 1, when Henrietta kept her cancer a secret, we see a society in which things are repressed, unacknowledged and unspoken. Day does nothing to help his children, and they cannot talk to him about the abuse they are experiencing, while Deborah finds that no one will tell her anything about her mother. Years later, Cootie confirms that the family maintained a silence about Henrietta after her death. Bobbette, meanwhile, provides a refreshing contrast; she is the only person who talks openly and encourages Deborah to tell her what has happened. She also offers an outside perspective on the incestuous relationships which seem to be the norm in the Lacks family.

As we move forward again to 1999, Cliff, like Cootie, is also refreshingly open, giving Skloot further information about the history of the Lacks family. His story reveals the irony of racial segregation and prejudice in a society in which it was not uncommon for blacks and whites to be related to each other. Cliff also laughs at the beauty of both races being buried together in the same cemetery, “spending eternity in the same place” (122). His comments, combined with Skloot’s comment that the white Lackses are aware of, but deny, their black relatives, suggests that race is a socially-contrived concept—everyone ends up in the same place at the end. This reference to the bodily similarities of blacks and whites recalls the medical and scientific community, where both races should be considered the same. As we’ve learned from the treatment of Henrietta and the men in the syphilis study, this isn’t the case.