Saturday

While preparing dinner for his family, Henry turns on the news once more. Despite the anxiety that the news gives him, he feels that it has become a habitual need. When the pilots turn out to be Russians, Henry does not feel any relief at the way the news story has unfolded but is disturbed at how it has influenced his mental and emotional state throughout his day.

Daisy arrives, and Henry feels emotional in greeting her, recalling the child she used to be, but acknowledging the woman that she has become—which he has reckoned with after reading her poems about her lovers. He notices that she seems a bit preoccupied but supposes that it must be someone new. They begin to discuss the march and Daisy gives Henry a speech to persuade him that the anti-war efforts matter, that the war will set off a series of disastrous invasions and create refugees while American troops “take the oil and build their military bases and run the place like a colony” (191). Daisy criticizes Henry for hating Saddam when Americans aided his rise to power and accuses him of having pro-war views. Henry argues that Saddam and his reign of terror must be dealt with eventually, and that if left unbothered he would wish death on every freedom Daisy’s generation enjoys. They finally make a bet on whose predicted outcome of the war will be true and resume their more playful banter.

Next to arrive is John Grammaticus. Henry is not as excited for this guest; he and his father-in-law have a polite but distant relationship. Neither understands the other’s occupations, and Grammaticus, caught up in his own egotistical dramas, does not make much of an effort to get to know Henry, focusing instead on his daughter and grandchildren. Grammaticus and Daisy immediately enter a short dispute about a few lines of Shakespeare’s; however, Daisy lets him have the last word and goes to present her manuscript proof, My Saucy Bark. Theo arrives and Henry praises both his son’s new song and his daughter’s manuscript. While talking with Daisy, she begins to cry gently on his chest, and he is lulled into imagining what situation might be causing these fluctuations in emotion.

Then, the door opens, and Rosalind enters, looking frightened, followed by two men, one of whom is Baxter. Henry feels for a moment that it was inevitable that Baxter should show up. Rosalind tells Henry that Baxter has a knife. Henry thinks of the various tools in the house he could use to attack with, but also feels out of his element in this scenario. Baxter takes their phones, but John Grammaticus does not own one and insults Baxter when he is pressed. When asked by Baxter if Grammaticus is his father, Henry says yes, but Baxter retaliates by striking Grammaticus across the face, drawing blood.

While Henry recognizes the signs of Huntington’s Disease in Baxter and knows that the disease enables him to commit violence like this, he also feels personally responsible for his poor handling of the wreck: “Why could he not see that it’s dangerous to humble a man as emotionally labile as Baxter?” (219) Henry pours the two men drinks and tries to accept the terms they asked for earlier—to pay for the vehicles repairs—but Baxter simply drinks and scans the room, fixating on Daisy. At his request, Daisy tells him her name and begs him to leave, promising they will not phone the police. Baxter grabs Rosalind and forces her onto the sofa, holding his knife to her neck and demanding that Henry and Theo back into the corner. Desperate, Henry lies and tells him that there is a new treatment from the United States with staggering remission results and promises to get Baxter on a trial. Baxter calls his bluff, but Henry persists until Theo begs him to stop, and Henry notices how much closer Baxter has gotten to puncturing Rosalind’s neck.

Baxter demands that Daisy remove all her clothing. When she does not immediately comply, he cuts a threatening gash into the sofa right alongside Rosalind’s head. Daisy strips off her clothing and stands, head bowed, with a pregnant belly exposed. Her shifts in mood suddenly make sense to Henry. Rather than focus on Daisy, Baxter is suddenly distracted when he glimpses her book of poems on the table. He picks it up and demands that she read a poem for him, mocking her. Although Daisy’s voice is shaky at first, she reads a poem describing the speaker’s lover looking out at the sea. Baxter is unexpectedly moved by the poem, demanding that she read it again. As she reads a second time, Henry imagines Baxter, and not Daisy, as the speaker of the poem. At the conclusion of the second reading, Baxter responds by exclaiming repeatedly, “You wrote that” (231). His mood shifts again, and he tells Daisy to get dressed. After she dresses and embraces her mother, he grabs the manuscript and announces that he is taking it.

Henry and Theo make eye contact: now is the time to act. As Baxter swings more fully into his elated mood, he begins rambling about the trial that Henry promised him earlier. Henry encourages this line of conversation and promises Baxter that there is information in his office, luring him upstairs. Once upstairs, Henry distracts Baxter with some medical paperwork, and they both hear the sound of Nigel fleeing. Theo comes lunging up the stairs, grabs Baxter by the lapels of his jacket, and throws him down the stairs with his father’s help. Baxter hits his head and passes out.

After the paramedics take Baxter away and the police have left, the family sits together in shock, trying to process the trauma of the evening together. Henry feels a surge of anger toward Baxter, wondering if saving his life had been the right thing to do. Rosalind encourages the family to eat, and together they finish putting the dinner together. This communal activity soothes everyone’s anxiety, and Grammaticus brings the focal point of the evening back to Daisy, toasting her and her poems. Henry learns that the poem Daisy read was not actually one of her own but was “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold.

However just as the evening begins to settle, Henry receives a call from Jay at the hospital, calling him in to help with a patient who was just admitted after being pushed down the stairs—Baxter. Henry feels some clarity and decides to go to the hospital.