Stacy

Stacy’s story turns on a contrast between what the Doss children knew and what they were allowed to know. Treated as the family’s alleged problem child, she was kept out of the loop during Joanne Doss’s deterioration and the concealed wrong that had fractured her parents’ marriage. A later call finds her looking beyond the family crisis: she is doing better, considering veterinary medicine, and making plans for Cornell.

Family Context and the Secret

During Joanne’s decline, Stacy was kept uninformed, while Eric Doss—who had dropped out to care for their mother—was probably closer to what was happening. Even Eric, however, had not been told the essence of Joanne’s sin. He apparently knew only that she had done something Richard Doss could not forgive. The distinction leaves Stacy further from the family’s central knowledge: she was not simply missing details, but excluded from the story that explained her father’s anger and her mother’s self-loathing.

Joanne’s deterioration included force-feeding herself and gaining weight as Becky grew thinner. The narration links this behavior to Joanne’s self-disgust and her remorse over what she had done. Stacy’s exclusion matters against that background: the family’s crisis was unfolding around her, but its defining cause remained withheld from her.

A Call Before Christmas

A week before Christmas, Stacy calls Alex Delaware and apologizes for not answering earlier, explaining that things had become busy. When he asks how she is, she says she is doing much better. She has done well on several A.P. exams and has learned that Cornell accepted her early. Although she recognizes that the university is far away and has cold weather, its veterinary school has made her consider becoming a veterinarian.

Stacy also reconsiders architecture, which now seems too impersonal to her. The shift gives her future plans a more personal direction, though she presents veterinary medicine as a possibility rather than a settled choice. She thanks Alex for his help and closes the call without turning the conversation into a lengthy account of her own recovery.

Family Ties and What Comes Next

Stacy asks after Eric and hears that he is okay. Richard is fine as well, though busy. Eric complains about having to visit a probation officer, and Stacy observes that he is lucky that is all he received. She has also heard that he changed his major to psychology; she suggests, tentatively, that Alex may have influenced him, and apologizes for the way Eric treated Alex.

The call presents a family still carrying consequences, but no longer defined only by the earlier crisis. Eric’s probation remains an unwelcome part of his life, while his change of major suggests a new direction. Stacy, meanwhile, has academic success and a possible professional path ahead. Her gratitude to Alex marks his help as meaningful to her, and her questions about her father and brother show that she remains attentive to the family from which she had once been kept at a distance.