53 pages • 1 hour read
Cylin BusbyThe Year We Disappeared
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2008A 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 30-34Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 30 Summary: “John”
About two months before his shooting, John is on the scene of a traffic fatality. Procedure dictates that traffic must be rerouted while the accident is under investigation. A tractor-trailer pulls up but is forced to wait until the scene is cleared. The driver is James Meyer, Raymond’s brother, who grows increasingly impatient, revving his engine and blowing his horn. John informs him of the detour route, but James drives forward, knocking John on to the street, and proceeds right through the accident scene. After the wreckage is cleared, John arrests James Meyer for assault and battery on a police officer. The trial is postponed after John’s shooting.
In January, following his second surgery, a Superior Court judge dismisses Meyer’s case for lack of evidence. John is never informed of Meyer’s arraignment prior to the trial, and so he never testifies. He suspects a conspiracy between Raymond Meyer and Robert Peres, the Falmouth court officer (responsible for notifying police officers of court appearances). Had James been convicted, it would have dealt a serious blow to the Meyer trucking business, further potential evidence that Raymond Meyer pulled strings to circumvent his brother’s trial.
One evening, Polly recalls the disappearance of another 17-year-old boy who had planned to testify against Meyer (his body was never found). Wondering how far Meyer’s connections go, she is terrified for her family. While she understands and shares her husband’s anger, she implores him not “to do anything stupid” (261).
Chapter 31 Summary: “Cylin”
That Spring, Cylin’s friend Amelia invites her over for a playdate. Cylin is ecstatic; she finally shares a normal day with a friend. Polly confirms the invitation, and that day, Cylin gets off the bus at Amelia’s house (sans police escort). Cylin has a wonderful time, but when Amelia’s mother drives her home, she is embarrassed by the sight of the security fence and having to be buzzed in through the gate. Her brief bubble of normalcy is burst. She tells her mother about the playdate while Polly scrubs John’s syringes and other equipment. The contrast between Amelia’s pristine lifestyle and her own saddens her.
Several weeks later, after Polly graduates from nursing school, she and John, with the help of Don Price and Rick Smith, discuss options for relocation. Certain states are ruled out immediately—nowhere near family and nowhere that “feels like home, a beach town” (269). They finally put three states in a hat. Shawn draws Tennessee.
Chapter 32 Summary: “John”
The Busbys choose a small town called Cookeville, TN for their new home. Polly has a nursing job waiting, and the Busby relocation fund will pay for a down payment on a house and cover moving expenses. Secrecy is still a top priority. No one (not even John’s most trusted friends) can know their new location; Polly’s new job cannot reveal her identity to anyone unless she okays the request; and their mail will be routed first through the police department and then through Polly’s sister in North Carolina.
Before they move, John undergoes one more reconstructive surgery to repair the other side of his jaw. While Polly studies for her nursing board exams, the family takes a trip to Maine to see John’s sister (without police security). The isolation of the Maine woods is a welcome relief. They swim in the lake, and the kids make friends for the first time in months, although they are under strict orders not to mention their situation to anyone. Despite the bucolic setting, however, John remains paranoid and can’t sleep. He sits on the porch at night, pistol in hand, anticipating any sign of danger. The pervasiveness of his anger and paranoia reach their limit, and John finally considers the possibility that revenge might not be the answer. Even if he kills Meyer, he purportedly has connections to a more powerful crime family in Boston; Meyer might be just the beginning. The running and hiding might never stop. With the safety of his family now his top priority, John resolves to give up his obsession with revenge.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Cylin”
Cylin is outgrowing her clothes, and she hasn’t bought anything new since before the shooting, so Polly takes her to the mall for a shopping spree. Cylin thinks it’s just her and her mother, but Don Price follows them discreetly. When he joins them for pizza, Cylin is angry; she had wanted time alone with her mother, and the constant, looming security has ruined the trip.
Following Polly’s graduation, the family drives to Maine. Despite Polly’s declaration that “you guys […] can go wherever you want, and there won’t be any cops around” (283), the drive is still fraught with tension when Shawn mutters that John’s condition was not an “accident” as Polly suggests. Once there, however, they have a wonderful time. After a month of relaxation and fun, they drive to Boston for Polly’s nursing exam. Once again, they stay with Uncle Joe. Cylin is taken aback at how Lauren has grown, and she wonders if she will need to wear a bra soon like her cousin.
Chapter 34 Summary: “John”
As they prepare to move to Tennessee, John fears the children don’t fully grasp the profound ways their lives will change—living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, no neighbors for at least a mile, different school schedules. As a final goodbye to Cape Cod, they take a trip to “the Dunes” and watch the sun set over the ocean. John reminisces about his police application process, the fitness and agility tests, and looking for his first job. While there are other job openings before Falmouth (Martha’s Vineyard, for example), circumstances dictate he accept the Falmouth job. Now, thinking about the major change they are embarking on, he can’t help but wonder how things would have been different if he had taken a job elsewhere.
Chapters 30-34 Analysis
As John slowly begins to move beyond his rage, he sees the toll the experience has taken on his family. Difficult as it is, he resets his priorities—family safety above all. Emotional and physical distance is the necessary component of his new outlook. The trip to Maine removes him not only from the physical environment of Falmouth with all the security and the company of fellow cops who feed his anger with updates on the stalled investigation, but the trip also provides a respite from his own inner demons, from the conspiracies and paranoia. When he sits on the porch of a rustic cabin, surrounded by the beauty of nature but still locked and loaded and ready to shoot any unfamiliar passerby, he knows he has hit rock bottom. Like an addict for whom the brief pleasure of getting high is no longer worth the emotional repercussions, John understands that his hunger for vengeance, if left unchecked, will destroy him and his family.
Therefore, the family makes the decision to go into hiding. The choice is a difficult one for John. For him, it means running away, something he has never done before. It means Meyer wins, and it rankles him for two big reasons. For one, it shakes his faith in the institutions of justice. While on duty, John witnesses the quid pro quo in the daily operations of the police department: certain well-connected people receiving preferential treatment, getting away with crimes that ordinary citizens couldn’t. It disturbs him, but as long as he (and other, honest cops) defies those unethical practices, he has hope. He can’t change the bad cops, but he can remain true to his own code of ethics, and those values sustain him.
Secondly, John sees his conflict with Meyer as a test of his manhood. John is a fighter, not someone who backs down when threatened, especially to someone like Meyer whom he describes as “this small, greasy-looking dude” and “a real nobody” (126). John equates power with physical stature, and he is amazed that Meyer holds such sway in Falmouth. The idea of running away from a man that he could easily beat one-on-one deeply challenges John’s identity as strong and fearless, an identity he has cultivated his entire life. In the end, however, he lets go of that younger man’s identity and makes the rational, mature choice to protect his family.
