I Know This Much is True Chapter 47 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • After playing racquetball with Leo, Dominick gets a visit from Joy and her baby.
  • She leaves, but not before hiding a note for Dominick, which he finds.
  • In the note, she confesses that Thad had AIDS, and she is HIV-positive.
  • She suggests he get tested (good idea) and asks if he'll take Tyffanie if he's negative, and if Joy dies.
  • Dominick gets tested; he's negative.
  • Then he goes to do a good deed for the day: visit Dessa at children's hospice and hold some kids.
  • Later, he and Ray have another day out, and Ray has a confession: He does know who Dominick's real dad is.
  • It was Henry Drinkwater.
  • Dominick and Ralph are cousins.
  • He goes to visit Ralph, who tells him that he thought Dominick always knew—after all, Thomas knew.
  • Dominick can't believe that he missed all the signs. He thought Thomas was just speaking crazy when he said that he and the Drinkwaters were cousins.
  • Dominick asks Ralph how he can get in touch with his heritage, how he can become Wequonnoc.
  • Ralph gives him an oval stone, saying, "Wequonnocs pray to roundness. […] Wholeness" (47.223).
  • Dr. Patel talks to Dominick again. He's angry with his mother for telling Thomas his heritage, but keeping it from Dominick.
  • Patel suggests that she did it because she knew Thomas was sensitive, and could accept it, and that Dominick was angry and full of rage and it would have just made things worse.
  • After, Dominick goes to visit Ray, and he learns that the crazy old woman at the nursing home is named Prosperine. Could it be the same Prosperine?
  • He races to the hospital's children's ward to borrow their rabbits (because where else can you get a rabbit?) and he takes them to the nursing home.
  • There, he holds the rabbits up in front of Prosperine, and pretends to make them one.
  • "Can you forgive me?" he asks. "Make me whole again?" (47.286)