Commonwealth

This chapter switches to Jeanette’s adult point of view, who is living in Brooklyn. She is married to Fodé, an immigrant from Guinea, and they have a baby son, Dayo, who is cared for during the day by another West African immigrant, Bintou. Jeanette comes home to find all of them squeezed together into the small Brooklyn apartment along with her brother Albie, who has suddenly shown up. Jeanette is shocked; she hasn’t seen Albie in eight years. The reader learns that Cal died when he was only fifteen years old, and after his death, the Cousins children no longer visited Virginia. Jeanette then focused on what “she considered to be her real family: Teresa, Holly, and Albie—the three people who were with her in the house in Torrance when she brushed her teeth at night” (150).

Jeanette remembers how the family avoided talking about Cal’s death until months afterwards when Teresa asked the children to tell her what happened that day. Cal, who was allergic to bees, had been stung during one of the Cousins’ visits to Virginia when they were visiting Bert’s parents. Because the children had been giving Cal’s Benadryl pills to Albie to make him fall asleep so they wouldn’t have to deal with him, Cal had no pills to treat his allergic reaction. The children, guided by Caroline, came up with a story that left out that detail, as well as the fact that they ignored him while he was dying, thinking that he was lying on the ground because he was playing around. Instead, they told the adults that Cal had gone into the barn by himself, and they found him later, lying in the grass. They also hid the fact that Cal had the gun on him.

As Albie grows older, he and a group of his friends become known in their Torrance neighborhood as “the Goddamn Boys on Bikes,” as they ride recklessly around on their bikes all over town with little regard for property or the safety of others or themselves. Eventually, they become obsessed with setting fires: “They liked precision, the art of flame, the single burning newspaper, one abandoned lot” (162). They are never caught until one fateful Saturday morning when the boys sneak into their high school, lighting a fire in the trashcan of the art room that eventually sparks out of control, burning down part of the school. Albie is sent to live in Virginia with Bert and Beverly, and eventually, at 18, he moves in with a friend. The family has not seen him since.

In Brooklyn, Albie finds a job working as a bike messenger. After a few months, he starts to contribute financially by helping Jeanette pay for rent and bills. During one of his bike deliveries to a publishing house where receptionists often give him free books, one of the receptionists gives him a copy of the book Commonwealth, which has won the National Book Award. As Albie reads the book, he realizes that he is reading a book written about his own family, his own life, even though some of the details have been changed. He is stunned to read about the little boy: “They feed the little boy Benadryl and stuff him in the laundry basket under a pile of sheets so they can ride their bikes to the swimming pool in town unencumbered. Isn’t that what everyone wants, just for a moment to be unencumbered?” (179). After reading the book in a laundromat, he heads back to the Brooklyn apartment and confronts Jeanette about the book.

The story returns to Franny and Leo’s developing relationship. They have been together for five years. Leo, who is 32 years older than Franny, is separated but still married to his wife, who is hoping to get more money from Leo’s future books and possible movie royalties. Leo rents a summer house from a famous actress in order to have time to work on a new novel. However, problems soon arise because people want to visit Leo in his lavish summer home. The first to arrive is Eric, Leo’s editor. Then Eric’s wife Marisol wants to join them. No one wants to leave the beautiful house, so Franny is stuck making dinner for her house guests.

Franny chafes at her newfound role of housewife: “As a feminist, Franny had to ask herself why it was she’d made dinner for Leo and Eric on Thursday night without ever expecting that they would offer to help her, but that when Marisol came out from the city the next day in her embroidered linen tunic and red linen scarf, and sat down on the screened-in porch and said what she could really use was a glass of white wine, a nice Chablis if they had it, Franny felt a little ping, like someone had just shot her in the neck with a rubber band” (187). She feels as if she is reenacting her waitress role, only without the tips. The “vacation” continues to go downhill as the increasing demands of the guests become wearisome to Franny, especially Marisol’s dietary needs.

Next to arrive is Leo’s agent, Astrid, and one of her young authors, who devours most of the food Franny had shopped for. Leo’s spoiled daughter Ariel, who hates Franny, announces that she will be arriving with her four-year-old son and perhaps her boyfriend. Finally, the Pulitzer-winning author John Hollinger will be arriving as well. Marisol, despite being a vegetarian, has bought lobsters for dinner, and Franny can hear the lobsters scratching away in their six boxes. “Franny was distracted by the scratching. The boxes, she could see now, were shuffling across the table in microscopic increments. The thought of each separate lobster in the dark was every bit as excruciating as the thought of Ariel Posen coming to Amagansett, either that or she was experiencing some sort of emotional transference” (204). Franny identifies with the trapped lobsters, and in an act of mercy and defiance, takes all six boxes out to the fishing pier, where she releases the lobsters into the water.

When she returns to the house, she discovers her brother Albie is there. She is shocked and immediately remorseful. She knows he has read Leo’s book and is furious that Leo has used their lives to write a best-seller. Albie has also discovered the secret of his childhood: that his brothers, sisters, and step-sisters regularly drugged him, and that is why Cal died. Once Albie sees Franny, he realizes that Leo got the whole family story from Franny. Franny tries to calm Albie down, convincing him to leave the house with her and ignoring Leo, who insists that the book is based on his imagination and not on Albie’s life.

The chapter returns to the aftermath of Cal’s death. Beverly, who has escaped to the movies at the time of Cal’s death, discovers Bert is having an affair. However, they stay together for six more years, during which fourteen-year-old Albie arrives to stay with them for a year after being expelled from his California school for setting a fire. Albie and Franny are there to witness Beverly and Bert’s marriage on the brink of collapse.