I Can Make This Promise

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2019

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue and Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-13

Chapters 14-20

Chapters 21-27

Chapters 28-34 and Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Bruno

At a Fourth of July celebration, Edie meets a stray dog. She notes that “his fur is mangy, but he looks happy” (8). She worries that he is separated from his family and wants to help him get home. Her parents pull her away, worried that the dog will hurt her. Although she never sees the dog in person again, Edie cannot stop thinking about him. She starts drawing pictures of him and names him Bruno. She decides that she wants to use him as the main character in her short film.

Bruno symbolizes Edie and her journey, reflecting themes of adoption and cultural disconnection. At the novel’s start, Edie feels lost. She does not have a strong understanding of what it means to be Indigenous and feels—not always consciously—as though she has lost her family. Her instinct to help Bruno get home echoes her drive to learn more about herself. When Edie’s parents stop her from helping the dog, their behavior upsets her. She sees their refusal as an extension of their willingness to lie about the family’s history. However, Edie’s parents view keeping her away from the dog as a way to keep her safe. Likewise, they choose to keep some information about her family secret so that Edie does not get hurt.

Edie compares herself to Bruno when she has her conflict with Amelia. While Edie and Serenity are eager to make the short film about the dog, Amelia refuses. During their final fight, Edie reflects, “I can’t make her choose the dog. I can’t make her choose me” (150). Bruno’s story comes full circle in the novel’s Epilogue when Edie and Serenity finally complete their film. Bruno, who was once lost and alone, finds a community on the other side of Puget Sound. At the same time, Edie has learned where she comes from and found her community.

Edie’s Art

Drawing is one of Edie’s passions. She maintains a drawing pad that she takes almost everywhere. Several other characters, most notably Edie’s parents and her uncle, remark on her skill. Edie’s drawings reflect her state of mind and her character growth. She starts drawing Bruno because she cannot stop thinking about him and sees herself reflected in him. She draws picturesque landscapes like the view from Golden Gardens, a place her parents take her to when she is upset or having a difficult time. When she gets frustrated, she accidentally ruins her drawing of the mountains across Puget Sound. After learning that Edith lived in Los Angeles, Edie draws palm trees, but she feels that her art is somehow incomplete.

Edie’s main challenge as an artist is her inability to draw people. Animals and landscapes come more naturally to her. The novel implies that the missing element in her drawing of Los Angeles was people, specifically Edith. There are still gaps in her knowledge, so her illustrations remain empty. Likewise, when Edie illustrates the park in Indianola, she includes Old Man House, but no people. Her mother asks her to add people into the landscape to make the story her art tells more complete by including the presence of Indigenous Peoples. At first, Edie’s drawings of people are uncertain and clumsy. Her parents reassure her that she will improve with practice, as “once upon a time, you weren’t very good at drawing dogs or landscapes, either” (199).

In the Epilogue, Edie and Serenity present their film. Despite Edie’s repeated insistence that she would not include people in her animation, there are people in the short film’s final scenes. Edie feels that she has already started to get better at drawing people. She understands that it is okay if her efforts do not result in perfection right away. By filling the landscapes with people, Edie has come to understand her place in her family and culture. The pieces that were missing from her earlier drawings have finally come into focus, reflecting Edie’s understanding of her identity and heritage.

Braces

In Chapter 10, “The Gap,” Edie gets braces. She was once excited to have a more conventional smile without a gap between her front teeth. Now that she knows more about Edith and realizes that they have the same smile, she feels uncertain. Edie worries that the braces will fundamentally change her, destroying one of her only tenuous links with the past. Getting braces makes Edie feel as though she is losing control. Once they are on, she tells her mother that “it feels unnatural” (75). The braces relate to the theme of Coming of Age and Changing Relationships. They are going to change some things about Edie, but they will not change who she is or where she comes from. Lisa tells Edie that even if her smile changes, she will always have her grandmother’s spirit.

For the next several days, Edie is in considerable pain. The braces make it difficult for her to eat even the softest foods. The pain is to be expected, but that does not make it any easier to manage. Thematically, Edie is going through growing pains. The braces hurt, but they will fix her overbite, and this discomfort is part of growing up. Learning about her heritage is also sometimes very painful, particularly when Edie learns what happened to her mother and her grandmother. Despite the pain, what Edie learns is valuable and helps her grow. Gradually, the pain in her teeth disappears. By the story’s end, Edie’s pain at her parents’ secrecy and her horror at learning the truth have faded as well. She feels comfortable with her new life, just as her braces have become comfortable.