Opening
These chapters bring the novel to its emotional peak. Samuel 'Sam' Hill finally embraces the very difference that once defined his pain, even as he returns home to face his mother’s imminent death, forgive an old tormentor, and choose a future with the woman he has always loved.
What Happens
Chapter 116: The Son of the Devil
On a medical mission in Central America, Sam meets Fernando, a six-year-old boy with ocular albinism whom local children call “el hijo del Diablo.” Withdrawn and wary, the child mirrors Sam’s own childhood isolation. Sam reaches him first through play—pretending Fernando has super strength—and then by sharing a secret he has guarded since he was eighteen.
In a decisive act of self-acceptance, Sam removes his brown contact lenses and washes them down the drain, revealing his red eyes to Fernando and his mother. He repeats the words his own mother once gave him—God did not make him different, but special—casting his eyes not as a curse but a calling. The chapter closes with a pact between them never to be ashamed again and Fernando’s fierce, grateful hug, the embodiment of Overcoming Otherness and Prejudice.
Chapter 117: You Need to Come Home
Riding the high of his breakthrough with Fernando, Sam feels compelled to call Mickie Kennedy—and then the phone rings. She is already on the line, their bond an uncanny testament to The Power of Friendship. Sam gushes about Fernando, eager and breathless.
Mickie listens, but her voice is subdued. She interrupts gently and delivers the blow: “You need to come home, Sam. You need to see your mother.” The news shadowboxes Sam’s triumph—joy and dread suspended in the same moment.
Chapter 118: God's Will
Mickie meets Sam at the airport and tells him the truth: Madeline Hill was diagnosed with aggressive, terminal breast cancer two months ago. In an act of Parental Love and Sacrifice, she kept her illness a secret so Sam would not abandon his mission work. She declined harsh treatment, accepting her fate as “God’s will,” a reflection of her steady Faith and Doubt.
At the hospital, Sam is stunned by his mother’s frailty. When she wakes, her first sight is his uncovered red eyes. She meets them with pure love: “My baby boy with the extraordinary eyes.” She absolves him of guilt and praises his service, then asks one final favor before resting—that he visit an “old friend” dying just down the hall.
Chapter 119: Nothing to Forgive
Sam enters the other room and doesn’t recognize the woman until she slides on thick, black-framed glasses: it is Sister Beatrice, the nun who tormented him at Our Lady of Mercy. She confesses her alcoholism and the childhood ridicule that hardened her, reveals she has been sober since treatment, and admits she has lived in the long shadow of her cruelty. Madeline, despite her own illness, has visited her daily.
Remembering what bitterness did to David Bateman, Sam refuses to let the past poison him further. He forgives her, telling her he knows it was the disease, not her. The forgiveness closes a wound that has defined his earliest pain and speaks to Bullying and Its Lasting Impact.
Chapter 120: This Means War
Over dinner and wine at home, Sam tells Mickie about forgiving Sister Beatrice. He then reveals a new resolve: he wants to adopt Fernando. Casually—yet unmistakably—he adds that adoption would be easier if he were married, an indirect proposal that makes their future suddenly real. She is cautious, but their talk turns intimate.
Sam confesses he has been celibate since Eva Pryor, unable to detach sex from love. Mickie puts on music and draws him into a slow dance. Decades of friendship and buried feeling crest into a tender, certain passion. They make love, and the moment lands as the natural culmination of a lifelong bond—Sam’s quiet arrival into a confident, whole self, a final movement in his Coming of Age.
Character Development
Sam’s arc completes a full circle: he stops hiding, becomes the mentor he once needed, and chooses forgiveness and family with clarity and courage.
- Sam Hill: Embraces his identity by discarding his contact lenses; mentors Fernando with the wisdom once given to him; forgives Sister Beatrice; decides to adopt; proposes a life with Mickie.
- Mickie Kennedy: Stays steady and perceptive; balances caution with vulnerability; moves from lifelong confidante to romantic partner, affirming their bond.
- Madeline Hill: Embodies selfless faith to the end; shields Sam from worry; blesses his work and identity; engineers reconciliation with Sister Beatrice.
- Sister Beatrice: Confesses addiction and past wounds; seeks atonement; receives forgiveness, complicating her former role as antagonist.
Themes & Symbols
These chapters crystallize Overcoming Otherness and Prejudice as Sam reframes his red eyes from stigma to vocation. His choice to reveal them to Fernando—and to wash his lenses down the drain—turns difference into purpose. The act breaks a decades-long habit of concealment and models self-acceptance for a child standing where Sam once stood.
Parental Love and Sacrifice and Faith and Doubt converge in Madeline’s quiet decisions: she protects her son from guilt, trusts his calling, and surrenders to “God’s will.” Her love sets the stage for one last lesson—mercy. Forgiving Sister Beatrice transforms the residue of Bullying and Its Lasting Impact into empathy, while Sam’s resolve to adopt and to love Mickie openly marks the completion of his Coming of Age: he chooses the future, not the wound.
- Symbol: The brown contact lenses become the story’s most potent object, representing shame and conformity; their disposal is a ritual of liberation.
- Motif: The “extraordinary eyes” recurs as a blessing, not a burden, linking mother to son to Fernando.
Key Quotes
“el hijo del Diablo.”
- The cruel nickname that once defined Sam’s own childhood now targets Fernando. Sam’s response reframes the label and interrupts a generational cycle of shame.
“God did not make you different, but special.”
- Sam passes on his mother’s defining wisdom, recasting otherness as calling. The line anchors his mentoring and seals the pact he makes with Fernando.
“You need to come home, Sam. You need to see your mother.”
- Mickie’s urgency collapses distance between triumph and loss. The call reroutes the plot and underscores their intimate attunement.
“My baby boy with the extraordinary eyes.”
- Madeline’s greeting becomes a benediction. She sanctifies the very feature Sam hid, granting him final, maternal validation.
“God’s will.”
- Madeline frames her illness through faith, not fatalism. The phrase clarifies her choices and invites Sam to meet suffering with purpose rather than despair.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
This sequence fuses the novel’s central threads—identity, faith, forgiveness, and love—into decisive action. Sam faces his past (Sister Beatrice), reckons with the present (his mother’s dying blessing), and commits to the future (Mickie and Fernando) without equivocation. The narrative comes full circle: the boy called “Sam Hell” becomes the man who rescues a child from that same name, transforming inherited pain into a legacy of care.