Bone Boatwright Timeline and Summary

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• Bone is born to Anney Boatwright and a father she never meets. She has "ILLEGITIMATE" stamped on her birth certificate.
• Glen, Bone's stepfather, molests her in the hospital parking lot while Anney is in labor with her third child.
• Glen moves the family around a lot, and there is hardly enough money for food or clothes.
• Anney catches Bone stealing from Woolworth's and makes her go into the store and apologize to the manager.
• Bone hates going to see Glen's family, who think of her as trash. During one visit, she tears at the rose bushes when Glen's family puts the Boatwrights down.
• When Glen catches Bone running in the house, he uses it as an excuse to drag her to the bathroom and beat her savagely, while Anney screams on the other side of the door.
• Glen starts to molest and beat Bone when Anney isn't around. Anney leaves Glen for two weeks when Bone ends up in the hospital with her collarbone broken but then goes back to him. Nothing changes.
• Anney sends Bone out to stay with Ruth, who is dying of cancer.
• A revival tent springs up by Ruth's house, and Bone is moved by the gospel music. She goes through a religious phase.
• Bone befriends Shannon Pearl and travels the gospel circuit with Shannon and her family. The friendship ends when Bone and Shannon have a fight that ends in some ugly words.
• Bone is sent by Anney to go stay with her aunt Raylene on the edge of town. One day Bone and her cousins find a set of trawling hooks in the river.
• Shannon calls Bone and invites her to a barbeque. As Bone is coming up to Shannon's backyard, Shannon sprays some lighter fluid on the grill, and the flame travels back up to the can and causes it to explode. Shannon catches on fire and burns to death.
• Bone and her cousin Grey break into Woolworth's by using the hook to climb up onto the roof. They leave the door open, and the place is looted.
• Ruth dies, and on the day before the funeral, Glen beats Bone really badly.
• After the funeral, Bone and her cousin Butch are drinking and talking in the backyard. Drunk for the first time, Bone ambles into the house and goes into the bathroom, where Raylene walks in on her and sees the wounds on Bone's legs.
• Raylene screams for the uncles, and they beat up Glen.
• Anney moves out on Glen, but Bone feels the weight of Anney's anger directed at her. She walks to Raylene's one day and stays there for three days.
• Bone goes with Anney to see Alma, who's gone a little crazy, and stays with her afterwards. Bone tells Anney that she can never go back to live with Glen, and Anney promises not to make her.
• Glen goes to Alma's one day when Alma is in the backyard and Bone is alone in the house. Glen blames Bone for Anney leaving him and demands that she tell Anney that she wants them all to be a family again. When Bone refuses, Glen brutally beats her up and rapes her.
• Anney arrives in the midst of the rape and hits Glen. She drags Bone to the car, but when Glen starts begging her to kill him, she cries Glen's name and holds him.
• Anney drops Bone off at the hospital and leaves. Bone refuses to talk to the deputy who asks her about the incident. She goes home with Raylene and doesn't speak to anyone.
• Anney appears. She tells Bone that she loves her and gives her a new birth certificate, one without "ILLEGITIMATE" written across the bottom. Then she leaves.
• Bone wonders about Anney's life and thinks about what kind of person she herself will be.