Section 3

Hooker decides he will be quiet no longer, and now demands answers. He is tired of being left in the dark and no one explaining his family situation to him. Him and Gilbert spend some over due quality time with one another. Hooker now makes reference to 'crazy people'. Hearing people in the town refer to his family as 'crazy' is both confusing and heartbreaking. Hooker can see his family fall apart; everyone losing themselves. Why is his family 'crazy'? What makes them 'Crazy'? Hooker asks "do only crazy people get forgiven?" What does he mean by this? I feel he is starting to believe that his mom is crazy, and the way his family behaves is crazy as well. So what do the crazy people need to be forgiven of? His mother not wanting to be a mother? His mother not wanting to be intimate with her husband because she doesn't want more children? His brother's alcohol abuse? Gilbert and Janice? His father giving Jessica a night gown? His father also paying little to no attention to his children? Hooker running away?
I think Hooker feels as if his mother's behaviour is being over looked. What she does and her anti-social behaviour is very 'hush-hush' when Hooker begins to inquire. The family caters to his mother's needs and I think to Hooker, it appears to him that they are approving of her decisions to isolate herself. Because she is 'crazy', does what she do get brushed aside and not matter? People can make a choice to recognise what she is doing or not doing, and decide if she should be forgiven because she is 'ill'. However what she does and doesn't do effects others around her. So if everyone in Hooker's family is crazy, does that make him crazy too?

Gilbert makes reference to wanting to keep Hooker's innocence as long as possible. So it appears that Gilbert believes that 'ignorance is bliss' is the best remedy for Hooker. I believe Gilbert thinks the only way he can protect Hooker, is keeping him in the dark, so to speak, and hide as much as possible to avoid Hooker hurting. Older siblings generally have an instinct to protect the younger ones, even if it means making sacrifices. Gilbert knows how sensitive Hooker is, and it is beautiful. The more he discovers about his family it will eat him and destroy him like it is doing to Gilbert. Everything Gilbert could have been and could have done, he doesn't want to see go to waste, so he is willing to put everything into protecting Hooker and giving his beauty everlasting life.