#3

"I Know This Much is True" begins the same way as In the Time of the Butterflies. We meet Thomas right after he cut his hand off, and then explore his childhood in order to learn more about him. Thomas was always Concettina's favorite. Their mother would fix Dominick a snack to keep him occupied, and then she would "play nice" upstairs with Thomas. They would read books and play dress up, feminine things that Dominick just wouldn't do. The favoritism was very obvious though, and he was very distraught when his mother died. Accompanying the death in their family, Ray starts sleeping on the couch downstairs and Thomas gets worse. Even though Ray and Concettina started their marriage partly out of convenience, there is no doubt that Ray loved her and wanted to keep her safe. She had a harelip, or birth defect, and he was the only person who told her she was "just as kissable as anyone else". The death of the person he was closest to hurt Thomas, and all of a sudden even more people or things were "out to get him". Another death that occurred during this week's reading was the most significant one in the book. Dominick's ex-wife Dessa and his daughter dies. This occurs in a flashback, but describes the way that he finds her in her crib. She was only three weeks old when she died, and Angela stays with Dessa and Dominick in their worst of times. In his anger and blindness after the death of his first child, Dominick gets a vasectomy. Dessa is overwhelmed by his unwillingness to talk about his feelings, to cope with his anger, and leaves him. She says he "sucks all the air out of the room". Those words stay with Dominick in every relationship thereafter, and he never falls out of love with Dessa.