There is no god. Or at least Caleum doesn't think there is. He asked all the same questions anybody would after losing a family member or witnessing something horrible or whatever. If there is a God then why is he letting this happen to me?
Mo's falling apart. Her drug addiction is getting a little better, but she's completely emaciated. Her PTSD has taken complete control. She's skin and bone, her hair's falling out but she's kind of confident. Kind of. She's comforting Caleum now as he breaks down and reverts to the same alcoholic tendencies that his estranged father had. Mo's completely plagued by physical pain, and she's 'doctor shopping.' As one doctor doesn't prescribe her pain meds, she moves on. When she finds one that does, she keeps him, but she never stops the 'shopping.' The more doctor's prescribing pain meds the better. As Caleum reverts to drinking, Mo's a narcotics addict. Eventually the cops find her 'doctor shopping' out and she gets hauled into the station. Mo's forced to find a shrink and start going to NarcAnon meetings. In a pitfall of rage, Mo goes off on Caleum who has taken her drugs away. To prove his point that they're in this together, Caleum drowns the pills in a river of alcohol.

Now Lamb does something that I never expected. He pulls away from his story and starts telling the reader about someone completely different, someone who we've never heard about. Now I'm questioning if I've just been out of the news loop lately because I feel like this story must have an underlining meaning. Something that relates back to Columbine but I just can't put it together yet. Lamb tells the story of Jesse and Morgan Seaberry. Sound familiar at all? Not to me. Jesse's the screw up of the family - the drug addict, the criminal, the unwanted one. Morgan on the other hand is the star. He's practically perfect in every way. He's a star student, a funny kid. He has charisma and a hunger for knowledge. They're brothers battling for attention and Morgan's winning.
The mother is the narrator. She figures that even though the elder Jesse's a screw up, she must have done something right eventually with the incredibly intelligent Morgan and the kind-hearted Alyssa. The mom gets cancer, she beats it, she pulls through. Happy story. By the end of the chapter Jesse's still a screw-up, Morgan's still perfect and Alyssa is still the lovely baby.