Eva's painkiller crisis

Eva's painkiller crisis turns the household's careful struggle to relieve her cancer pain into an emergency: the morphine Delphine has guarded is missing just as Eva's agony overwhelms her. Delphine's search reveals that Tante has taken the medicine and poured it away, while the people Delphine needs for a replacement are unreachable. The rescue comes from Roy, who breaks into a drugstore to obtain morphine; Delphine brings it home in time to stop Eva from reaching for a knife and prepare another dose. The scene sets medical care against suspicion and obstruction, and gives Delphine's competence and Roy's unexpected intervention immediate, life-preserving force.

The medicine disappears

The crisis unfolds during a Fourth of July gathering. After Fidelis lifts Sheriff Hock by the belt loop with his teeth and drops him to the ground, the men resume singing, growing louder and more raucous as their drunken hilarity rises. The celebration is set against the sight of Eva watching from the pantry window: to Delphine, death seems to be looking out through Eva's eyes. Delphine leaves the singing to fetch the morphine, the medicine Fidelis has worked hard to pay for and she has guarded jealously.

The icebox is empty. Delphine searches it repeatedly, but the vial, powder, and other syringe are gone. Eva is restless in the next room, and the loss is not an inconvenience that can wait: without the medicine, Delphine has no ready means to blunt the agony building in her friend's sickroom. She alerts Fidelis, who is wiping sweat from his face after his exertion. When Delphine tells him someone has stolen the morphine, he turns in anger; she leaves before his unfinished response can become a confrontation.

Eva's pain intensifies

Delphine gives Eva the remaining opium wine, but Eva vomits it up. She tries to laugh at her condition, calling herself worse than a puking baby, then groans and begins taking the shallow, panting breaths she uses to keep from shrieking. When the pain surges, she begs and arches off the bed, asking for a rolled-up washcloth between her teeth. Delphine understands that another supply will take hours to obtain: she must find Doctor Heech, wherever he is celebrating, and then reach the pharmacist.

The crisis puts the household into motion. Delphine calls to Fidelis through the garden door and tells Cyprian to take the pies from the oven before driving off to get medicine. But rather than go directly to Doctor Heech, she heads first to Tante's small house, two blocks from the Lutheran church. Delphine suspects Tante because she remembers her discussing Eva's dose in whispers with her prayer friends over lemon pound cake. The hurried detour is an attempt to recover the missing medicine before Eva's suffering worsens further.

Delphine confronts Tante

Tante opens the door and affects difficulty understanding Delphine, speaking ragged High German. Delphine pushes past her and searches the refrigerator. On the way, she notices a slim object wrapped in a handkerchief on a table. Inside is the missing hypodermic. The discovery confirms that the medicine has been deliberately withheld, but it does not yet make it usable: Tante tells Delphine she has thrown it down the sinkhole.

Delphine sees the washed vial and morphine bottle drying beside Tante's porcelain sink. Tante defends her interference by claiming that Doctor Heech does not know Eva as well as she does, that he feels too sorry for her, and that Eva is addicted. Delphine begs her to reconsider, then takes hold of Tante's bodice and forces her into the car. She brings Tante back to the Waldvogel house and orders her to stay and nurse Eva. Delphine's anger is sharpened by the immediate stakes: Tante's judgment has left Eva in pain, while the nearest sources of medical help remain out of reach.

Roy brings the replacement

Delphine spends hours trying and failing to locate Doctor Heech or Sal Birdy, the drugstore keeper. Fidelis is also out searching. On the drive back, Delphine sees her father Roy stumbling along the road. At first she thinks he is drunk and feels a sudden urge to run him over; then she notices his eyes are clear. He is heading toward the butcher shop, carrying a bottle carefully in both hands.

The bottle is labelled sulphate of morphia. Roy has obtained it by breaking into the drugstore and sawing through the lock on the cabinet where Sal keeps legally secured drugs. The scene overturns Delphine's immediate expectation that Roy is seeking alcohol: at the moment when his usual purpose seems most likely, he has brought the medicine Eva needs. His action does not erase his history of drinking, but it makes him the source of rescue in this emergency.

Delphine restores care

Delphine slams on the brakes, jumps from the truck, and runs into the house with the bottle. Inside, canning has been smashed from the shelves. Tante is slumped, white with shock, in a kitchen corner. Markus and Franz are crying and holding on to their mother as Eva rummages in a drawer for a knife. Her attention is fixed on the need to end the agony; even Franz cannot hold her back.

Delphine enters with what she calls a cold flood of competence. She swiftly takes the knife from Eva and tells her not to do it, reminding her that the medicine has arrived and asking her not to leave her boys. Eva lets herself be lowered to the floor. Delphine gives Franz the practical task of fetching a blanket and pillow, and asks Markus to hold Eva's hand and reassure her that the medicine is being prepared. The sons' tears give way to something to do, while Delphine takes responsibility for making the dose. The crisis thus ends its immediate descent toward self-injury through a chain of concrete acts: Roy brings the morphine, Delphine stops the knife, and the boys help keep their mother comforted as care resumes.