David Small Timeline and Summary

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• David tells us about his family life, and how each member has a unique, passive-aggressive communication style.
• David's way of communicating is to get sick a lot. He has sinus trouble, which his dad treats with X-rays.
• He goes with his mother and brother to the hospital to pick his dad up from work. His dad's busy, so David plays in the hospital to entertain himself.
• While sock-skating in an empty hospital hallway, he notices a row of fetuses in jars on a shelf; he imagines that one comes to life and chases him down the hallway.
• David runs to the elevator, forgetting his shoes. His mom slaps him across the face.
• He goes with his mom on spring vacation to visit his grandparents in Indiana.
• When his mom leaves the house one day, he's forced to stay in the house alone with his grandmother. She asks him to help her make the bed, but he can't figure out how to put on the pillowcases.
• That night, upon realizing he doesn't like the dinner she cooked, David's grandmother sends him to bed, and he argues with her.
• She drags him upstairs and scalds his hands in the bathroom sink.
• When his mom comes home that night, David tries to tell her his grandma is crazy, but she puts her hand over his mouth and tells him not to use that word again.
• By the time he's eleven, David has a growth on his neck; Mrs. Dillon, a family friend, suggests his parents take him to a doctor.
• David goes with his parents to hang out on another doctor's big, fancy boat.
• When David's dad asks the doctor—an ear, nose, and throat specialist—what's wrong with David's neck, the doctor says it's probably a sebaceous cyst and tells David's mom to bring him into the office.
• The doctor suggests David's dad take X-rays of the area, which his dad does.
• In the office, the doctor diagnoses the tumor as a cyst and says David will need to have surgery to remove it, but no hurry.
• David's parents finally schedule the surgery three years later. Turns out it's a tumor, and he needs a second surgery.
• That night in the hospital, his mom asks him if he wants anything, since she thinks he's dying of cancer (not that she would tell him that).
• He asks for a copy of Lolita from the gift shop, since his mom burned his other one because she thought it was pornographic.
• David goes to surgery the following morning and wakes up without a vocal cord; his mom, realizing he's going to live, has taken away the copy of Lolita.
• David goes through the next two years of adolescence without a voice. He starts acting out, and his parents send him to boarding school.
• The school is all about manual labor and religion, so he runs away three times, until finally, the school sends him home, suggesting he get psychiatric help.
• His mom takes him to a therapist, to whom he speaks in a whisper.
• The therapist tells David his mom doesn't love him, and although it's really sad, hearing the truth allows him to start to get better.
• He comes home early one day and sees his mom in bed with Mrs. Dillon.
• His dad takes him out to dinner and tells him that the X-rays gave him cancer.
• Needless to say, David bails on the childhood home. He moves into a boarding house at age sixteen and makes friends with the other people there.
• David grows up, leaves Detroit for New York, and becomes an art professor.
• He gets a call from his dad saying his mother is dying, and he drives back to Michigan to say goodbye to her.
• As he's leaving the hospital, David goes upstairs to see the fetuses in jars again—they're still there, but this time none of them come to life.
• Many years later, David has a dream that he sees his mother sweeping a path to the insane asylum where his grandmother died.
• She motions for him to come inside, but he chooses not to. He's finally left his family, both geographically and in his dreams.