Before We Were Yours: Chapter 18 Summary & Analysis

The house is dark and quiet as Rill slips out as quietly as she can to meet Silas at the fence. On the way, she worries that Briny and Queenie won’t want her when they find out she lost her four siblings. When Silas sees her, he whispers excitedly for her to come over because he’s cut a bar on the fence that they can pull out so Rill can climb through and they can get away. Rill tells him that she must stay because Fern is coming—their escape will have to wait a night or two. She also wants to bring Stevie with them. Silas argues with her but agrees to come back the next night for her and Fern.

When Rill slips back into the house, she runs into Mr. Riggs on the stairs and he tries to force her down another staircase. A worker sees him, but Riggs blocks her view of Rill. The worker wants to know why Riggs is upstairs since he shouldn’t be there. Rill slips away unnoticed while Riggs tries to convince the worker he was just checking on the windows, and he tells the worker that if she’s not nice he’ll tell his cousin Ida.

The next day Mrs. Murphy lines the kids up because she found muddy footprints in the kitchen that indicate someone snuck out during the night. Rill is nervous because she knows her feet made the prints. Before Murphy can check her feet, though, the phone rings—Georgia Tann is on the line and tells Murphy to get Rill cleaned up, dressed, and ready to meet a client. Mrs. Murphy protests, but Tann insists. Mrs. Pulnik gets Rill ready for wherever she is going with Mrs. Murphy. They take a car downtown and Murphy tells Rill she has to behave and do exactly as she’s asked without crying or saying no; if she doesn’t follow these rules, Stevie will be punished. They get out of the car at a hotel. Rill wants to call for help but is afraid of what’ll happen to Stevie if she does.

Mrs. Murphy brings Rill into one of the rooms. Tann is there already, and they leave Rill alone in one room while they talk in another. Rill hears a knock on the door and a man’s voice talking to Tann, who says he’s welcome to take Rill if he wants her but says they have better girls available. However, the man says he wants Rill in particular. Rill listens to this in horror as the man explains that he’s taking Rill for good. Mrs. Murphy is surprised and mentions that she thought he wanted Rill for something else. Tann says it will take a year for the adoption process to be finalized and the man says he just wants Victoria to be happy. The man walks into the room Rill is in—it’s the man whose wife read books to Fern at the viewing party.