Bridge of Clay

Clay goes to McAndrew, who drives him to Silver with Achilles in a trailer. McAndrew admires their progress on the bridge and chats with the Murderer (Michael) about Clay.

Penelope plays word games with the medications she is given to help ease her suffering. She tries to keep up a positive attitude about the situation but experiences a swinging scale of wellness as treatments work and fail. She lives beyond the six months originally granted to her. When she comes home from another stint at the hospital, she spends time playing the piano.

The Murderer (Michael) assures Clay that he is the only one who can finish the bridge. Clay thinks about the legend of Pont du Gard, where villagers made a deal with the devil for a bridge to be made overnight. He tells his father that while he would never make such a deal to complete a bridge, he would sell his soul to bring his loved ones back to life.

After surviving for 13 months, Penelope asks to go drinking at a pub down the street. The boys convince Michael to agree; he originally stays on the lawn, but Clay helps lift him upright so that they can walk as a family. At the bar, Penny orders a beer for each member of her family, and the bartender gives them to her without fuss and without charge. The boys barely drink theirs and she finishes what they do not.

Clay becomes obsessed with the bridge, working for 120 days without rest. The Murderer (Michael) tells Matthew when he leaves for the mines so that someone will call and check on Clay in his absence. Finally, the Murderer forces Clay to take a weekend off and travel to Featherton. He gives Clay the tour of his childhood hometown, matching the stories Clay heard to reality. As night falls, the Murderer asks if Clay wants to dig up the old typewriter. Clay rejects this offer, believing that the act of writing the story did not belong to him.

As the Dunbars grapple with Penelope’s impending death, they grow even more chaotic. Matthew is offered a fulltime job at the age of 16. While he likes English, he is drawn to work as the family’s bills start to pile up. Michael realizes why Matthew has made this decision and has an outburst. The boys fight over a game of Monopoly, but when Penelope calls Matthew’s bluff without even looking at him, the boys are all struck by what it is they stand to lose.

The Dunbar brothers travel to Silver to see Clay in an unexpected trip. They arrive as Clay and the Murderer (Michael) are removing supports from the arches of the bridge, making it look complete. The brothers play football in the riverbed, occasionally stopping to marvel at the bridge. Matthew, recognizing how much the bridge is a part of Clay, calls out to the Murderer to have him join the game.

Penelope continues to survive her prognosis, substitute teaching when she can. Shortly after her third Christmas with cancer, the doctors make arrangements for her to die at home. She tells Clay the unedited versions of their family stories, including directions of where to find the family typewriter. She asks Clay to tell the stories back to her and dies three weeks later.

The bridge is completed, and Achilles is the first creature to cross it. Clay decides to work with Matthew in the city, but before he goes, he and the Murderer (Michael) survey their work. The Murderer shows Clay a sketch of him sitting in the city kitchen, holding a broken clothes peg.

Penelope’s condition continues to deteriorate. When the boys aren’t around, she asks Michael to help her die, a conversation that Clay overhears because he has started to skip school to watch the house. Michael carries Penelope outside, meaning to help her die by car exhaust inhalation, but he cannot complete the act. Clay picks his mother up and carries her into the garage, placing her in the car. As he does, he is certain the last thing that she sees are the bright plastic clothes pegs hanging in the sunlight.

Matthew describes how Clay returned to school after putting Penelope in the car but was quickly collected by his brothers and the police. At home, Michael claimed he left the house and that Penelope committed suicide in his absence.

By winter, the rainy season arrives. Clay works with Matthew and goes running in the racing quarter, checking to make sure that Carey’s bike is unmolested. The day the rainy season starts, he unlocks the bike and gives it to a girl walking home through the downpour. The Dunbar boys travel to Silver to see if the bridge survives the water, joining the Murderer (Michael) in his house. The water of the Amahnu rises so high it submerges the bridge and the boys wait for the water to drop. Clay finds more drawings of himself that the Murderer has done. He wakes every day before dawn to check the water.

After four days, Clay wakes the others to watch the sun rise over the still-intact bridge. They are all frozen in the wonder of Clay’s accomplishment. Achilles steps onto the bridge.

In the novel’s actual present, Matthew grapples with the story he has told thus far and struggles to tell what is left to be told. The day after the bridge emerges from the water, the Dunbar boys return home. Clay stays up for two nights telling Matthew the whole story of their family, Carey, and Penelope’s death. He leaves the next day, taking time to say goodbye to each of his brothers. He gives Matthew the note with Claudia Kirkby’s number on it.

Eleven years pass from the day the Murderer (Michael) first visited. Tommy goes to university and becomes a social worker with a therapy dog; of the childhood pets, Achilles is the only one still alive, living out in Silver. Henry becomes a real estate agent and marries a woman he met at a yard sale. Rory reconnects with their father and regularly gets drinks with Matthew to talk about their past and Clay. Several months after Clay’s departure, Matthew finally asks Claudia out and begins to mend his relationship with his father.

The Bernborough track is replaced. The Novacs leave, but The Surrounds remains. Matthew has two daughters with Claudia who often ask him for the family stories. Matthew proposed to Claudia, but the two agreed to wait for Clay to return before they hold a ceremony. While waiting, years passed, and they finally agreed that if Clay did not return home by the time Matthew turns 31 they would have the ceremony without him. With the deadline approaching, Matthew goes to his father and begs him to find Clay. The Murderer travels Italy, waiting in the Florence gallery. Finally, Clay arrives.

The day of Matthew’s wedding, the Dunbar men assemble in the kitchen of the Archer Street home. Clay arrives just in time and is tackled to the front lawn by his brothers. Matthew embraces Clay and cries with him.