The Painted Drum

The last chapter returns to Revival Road and the narrative voice of Faye Travers. A year or so has passed since Faye and Elsie took the drum to North Dakota, and now, on an autumn evening, they sit on their porch listening to the coyotes sing. To Faye, it “is the music of all broken and hunted creatures who survive and persist […]” (258).

Both women are startled by Kurt Krahe’s arrival. Unaware of the women sitting in the dark, he enters the porch, but before he goes further, Faye invites him to sit with them. Elsie excuses herself after a few minutes, and Kurt straightforwardly asks Faye why she ended their relationship. It has been more than a year since she changed her locks, during which time they’ve exchanged only polite nods in public. Faye does not have an answer for Kurt. They talk, but their words bring them no closer, and instead, “a gulf filled with words plunges down between” (261) them.

The next morning, Faye confronts her mother about Netta’s death, a subject they’ve never discussed. When Elsie closes her eyes following Faye’s account of what happened in the orchard, Faye understands that her mother “has always pictured and believed another story” (263)—a story that blamed Faye.