67 pages • 2 hours read
Laura McBrideWe Are Called to Rise
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 11-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “Avis”
Nate is upset that his parents are separating and selling their house; Avis is glad because she thinks Nate is taking her side. When Avis arrives at Nate and Lauren’s house to drop off a box, the door is open, so she walks in unannounced. She finds her son with his wife’s arm in a “vise grip” and shouts at him to let go. Avis threatens to call 911 and takes out her phone, waiting for her son to release Lauren. For a moment, Avis worries that Nate has lost control. Nate finally releases Lauren and yells at Avis for walking into his house without knocking, which Avis knows is an absurd excuse.
Avis has a flashback of four-year-old Nate playing on a kid’s soccer team. She recalls how after the first game Nate never participated or chased after the ball. Avis and Jim tried encouraging him to become involved in games and even bribed Nate with dimes. At the end of the season, Avis realized that her son wasn’t involved because they had never bought him all of the necessary soccer gear—including shin guards—and when she was accidentally kicked by a kid on the team, she realized how much pain her son must have been in. She wonders why Nate never told her that he needed the equipment.
At Nate’s house, Avis imagines Nate grabbing her by the arm and screaming at her as well. In her imagination, Sharlene comes to yell at Nate, and Nate storms off, telling her he is glad Jim left her. Then Avis remembers Nate’s childhood again: At seven years old, Nate tries catching a football punt from Jim at the park. At first Nate is visibly scared of the ball’s downward arc, but eventually, he catches one and celebrates with excitement. He tells him mother how happy life makes him.
While comforting Lauren after her abusive experience with Nate, Avis becomes internally angry. She thinks about how Lauren is crying weakly in her arms and wonders what is wrong with her, but she admits that it’s illogical for her to be mad at Lauren for being abused by her son. Avis thinks about other women in her life who have been mistreated by their husbands and reacted by crying and how annoyed that made her. This evokes a memory of Sharlene being abused by her boyfriend Mark. Avis—a girl at the time—wanted to help her mother by offering her Mark’s gun.
The narrative jumps back to the present. Avis is still comforting Lauren while hiding her anger. Avis says she is good at comforting people in distress because she just caresses them in times of need, but she admits to herself that she and Jim were too lenient in raising Nate because he was always in more trouble than other boys his age in the neighborhood. Avis hears Nate kick-start his motorcycle outside and then roar off. Lauren, still crying, tells Avis that Nate has been angry since Jim told him about selling their house; Nate has been drinking more, and that frightens Lauren. Avis thinks more about her own mother’s abusive history and how Jim would never do that to her.
Avis thinks about her time as a teen: She worked late-night shifts at a casino, but she loved school and tried to keep the two worlds separate. She compares this to Nate’s high school years, when he had a vibrant social life and popular friends who would party and drink. She knew about Nate’s problems but never said anything to him, happy that her son was “having an all-American childhood” (107), which she never had. Avis asks Lauren how long the abuse has been happening, and Lauren hesitantly tells her it has been a year—ever since he returned from his latest deployment. Avis shudders to think it has been so long and recognizes how much her son was changed by the war.
Avis has a flashback to when Nate’s friends were involved in a car crash that paralyzed one of the boys. The driver was drunk, and back then Nate was secretly selling alcohol to teens at his high school. Because Jim had a connection, they were able to keep this information a secret, but Avis wonders how Nate’s future could have been different if he had been convicted for providing alcohol to the driver.
Avis worries about how big Nate’s problem has become. Nate doesn’t return that night, so Lauren sleeps over at a friend’s house. Avis leaves a note for her son to call her or Jim but wonders if Nate actually will. The chapter ends with Avis’s memories of Nate as a 10-year-old happily playing baseball. She wonders how her sweet and innocent son from back then has turned into “the man brutally twisting his wife’s wrist” (110).
Chapter 12 Summary: “Bashkim”
Bashkim is at a Thanksgiving school assembly, but instead of enjoying it, he is planning how he would escape if a fire broke out. Eventually, he cheers up and enjoys watching kindergarteners sing and a teacher’s magic performance, which he can’t wait to tell Nene about. After the assembly, Mrs. Monaghan rewards the class by allowing them to have a talent show. Bashkim comments that it has been “the best day I have ever had at school, and I wish that it wasn't going to be Thanksgiving so soon” (116).
Since Bashkim’s Albanian family doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, they sell ice cream during the holiday to families at local festivities. Nene has tried to get Baba to expand the business to sell food as well—since customers have asked for it—but Baba says they shouldn’t “trust America so much” (117) and doesn’t want to get the necessary permit.
While selling ice cream, Bashkim can see the other kids his age playing soccer and wishes he could participate. A coach who is buying ice cream asks why Bashkim is working instead of playing on a team. Baba tells the coach that Bashkim can’t play like “the rich kids” (118) and has responsibilities to his family. Bashkim is uncomfortable, and the coach leaves an extra tip out of pity. This inspires Baba to keep telling other customers about Bashkim having to work. Bashkim is unhappy because he can see the looks of pity, but the truck receives more tips than ever that day. Nene wants to comfort her son, but there is nothing she can do since Baba will only yell at her. Nene simply slips him a dollar, and Bashkim appreciates her gesture.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Luis”
Dr. Ghosh tells Luis about the unpredictable effects of stress and trauma on a person. The effects are not only “physical” but “emotional, psychological, and spiritual” (120), a point that resonates deeply with Luis. He reflects on how his war experiences tested him in every aspect, especially how his religious beliefs were challenged by other soldiers in his unit who believed in other faiths. He grew from this and learned to trust others despite their differences. Dr. Ghosh tells him he needs to confront his sources of stress to overcome them, but Luis is perplexed by this approach since in war he was trained to focus on survival rather than emotions.
Luis begins to recall memories of Sam, how they both had a strong instinct to survive and suppress their ability to relax or hesitate, and how this allowed them to be successful in war together. Dr. Ghosh encourages Luis to meditate on whatever angers him; Luis knows he needs to prevent his anger from exploding but is unsure how, especially after his failed suicide attempt.
Then Luis begins to think about the letter from Bashkim. He remembers when he was in third grade and would sleep in his grandma’s room for comfort, even when he was “too old.” He wishes he could be with his abuela at that moment and that he was still a kid so that he could take everything back and start over. His guilt begins to weigh him down—guilt over Sam’s death, killing a child, and writing angrily to Bashkim. He can’t remember how or why Sam died, but he thinks it’s his fault—that he made a mistake and lost his concentration. Despite his depression and shame, Luis is confident he will recover, saying he has already “popped” and won’t risk anyone’s life again.
Chapters 11-13 Analysis
The silence of victims begins to emerge in these chapters as PTSD takes a stronger hold on the war veterans. Avis witnesses how violent and abusive her son has become after Iraq, and she stands up to him fearlessly since Lauren is too timid and afraid—a silent victim, powerless in the face Nate’s toxic masculinity. Since Avis has experience with abusive men—which is revealed in her flashbacks to living with Sharlene—she is able to find solutions and doesn’t seem intimidated by a large, angry man. At one point, she even threatens to call the police on her own son, proving that she will do what is necessary to protect those in vulnerable positions, such as Lauren.
Still, Avis is worried for her son’s mental health, at one point stating, “Nate stares back at me. Something in his eyes makes me afraid. I am not sure he is going to let go. What is he thinking? Does he have control?” (102). Here, the narration suggests that Nate is not himself; something has changed him internally. Seeing warfare in three tours of duty has clearly warped Nate’s psychology. The contrast of the image of Nate as a “little boy with the SeaDogs cap” and the monster “yanking back [Lauren’s] head” (110) amplify how males can become destructive in certain toxic circumstances. Avis, however, refuses to give up on her son: Her chapter ends in her leaving a note for Nate to call her and talk.
The tones of fear, abuse, and repression are maintained in the story of Bashkim, who is also in a position of silent victimization with his Baba. Baba is easily angered and holds on to an outdated view of patriarchy, regularly lashing out at his family, especially Nene, if they challenge his assertions. His behavior leads to unhappiness and silence in his family, a common result of toxic patriarchies in which the man is the unchallenged ruler, even when he is clearly wrong. The fact that Bashkim isn’t looking forward to a popular American holiday shows just how isolated he feels living with his Albanian family, especially when Baba makes him work while other boys his age play baseball.
Whereas Nate and Baba represent males with controlling and violent tendencies, Luis is learning how to cope with his anger and troubled past. Luis is introspective and allows himself to be vulnerable, saying:
I like Dr. Ghosh. But a lot of what he thinks I should do is the exact opposite of everything I needed to do to survive. I would have been dead months ago if I started thinking about my nightmares. If I thought about anything other than what the mission was, how to survive it, what were all the ways I could die that day (121).
Though he is just starting his path to redemption and hasn’t fully reached inner peace, he is beginning to question the mentalities and tendencies he was trained to have as a soldier. This move towards self-healing is what Nate and Baba lack.
