Echo

Mr. Potter shows Frankie and Mike how to play the blues on the harmonica. As Mike practices on his new harmonica, which makes him feel “different,” when he plays it, Eunice avoids her new wards (295). Every night, Frankie asks the same question: “Do you think tomorrow she will spend time with us?” (299)

Mike overhears Eunice telling Mr. Howard that she plans to see her lawyer, Mr. Golding, to “undo what’s been done” (303). In their conversation, Mr. Howard tells Eunice that he only wanted to help her fulfill her late father’s wishes: to create a house “filled with children and music” once again, in order to re-open her heart to love (303). She complains that everyone has always left her, and Mr. Howard becomes tearful reminding her that he himself has not. It is implied that her son, Henry, is dead.

The boys find out that Mr. Howard loves Eunice and hopes to marry her. Mike asks him outright why she adopted them, and he explains that her son Henry drowned in a lake under her ex-husband’s supervision. Her father made it a condition of his will that she adopt a child, as he hoped to heal her broken heart. However, the boys also learn that their adoption will not be finalized for three months. Mr. Howard assures them that Eunice is at heart a good, kind person, and that they should hope for the best.

Assuming that Eunice will not let the adoption of both boys stand, Mike attempts to come up with a plan. He hopes that he can join Hoxie’s Harmonica Wizards and convince Eunice to adopt Frankie.

Mike talks to Eunice and reveals that he knows the conditions of her father’s will. He shares with her his own experience of grief: “When I was sad about my mother, Granny used to say grief is the heaviest thing of all to carry alone” (320). He asks her to keep Frankie and says he will audition for Hoxie’s Harmonica Wizards. She asks if that’s what he wants, and he replies that Frankie’s safety is his priority. She cries, and Mike cannot make sense of her tears.